The Life Of Thomas Paine, Vol. 2. (of 2)
by Moncure Daniel Conway · English · Gutenberg #37702 · 896,280 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Life Of Thomas Paine, Vol. 2. (of 2)
Author: Moncure Daniel Conway
Release date: October 10, 2011 [eBook #37702]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37702
Credits: Produced by David Widger
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE OF THOMAS PAINE, VOL. 2. (OF 2) ***
Produced by David Widger
THE LIFE OF THOMAS PAINE
WITH A HISTORY OF HIS LITERARY, POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS CAREER IN
AMERICA FRANCE, AND ENGLAND
By Moncure Daniel Conway
To Which Is Added A Sketch Of Paine By William Cobbett
(Hitherto Unpublished)
Volume II.
1899
THE LIFE OF THOMAS PAINE.
{1793}
CHAPTER I. "KILL THE KING, BUT NOT THE MAN"
Dumas' hero, Dr. Gilbert (in "Ange Pitou "), an idealization of Paine,
interprets his hopes and horrors on the opening of the fateful year
1793. Dr. Gilbert's pamphlets had helped to found liberty in the New
World, but sees that it may prove the germ of total ruin to the Old
World.
"A new world," repeated Gilbert; "that is to say, a vast open space,
a clear table to work upon,--no laws, but no abuses; no ideas, but no
prejudices. In France, thirty thousand square leagues of territory for
thirty millions of people; that is to say, should the space be equally
divided, scarcely room for a cradle or a grave for each. Out yonder,
in America, two hundred thousand square leagues for three millions of
people; frontiers which are ideal, for they border on the desert, which
is to say, immensity. In those two hundred thousand leagues, navigable
rivers, having a course of a thousand leagues; virgin forests, of which
God alone knows the limits,--that is to say, all the elements of life,
of civilization, and of a brilliant future. Oh, how easy it is, Billot,
when a man is called Lafayette, and is accustomed to wield a sword; when
a man is called Washington, and is accustomed to reflect deeply,--how
easy is it to combat against walls of wood, of earth, of stone, of human
flesh! But when, instead of founding, it is necessary to destroy; when
we see in the old order things that we are obliged to attack,--walls of
bygone, crumbling ideas; and that behind the ruins even of these walls
crowds of people and of interests still take refuge; when, after having
found the idea, we find that in order to make the people adopt it, it
will be necessary perhaps to decimate that people, from the old who
remember to the child who has still to learn; from the recollection
which is the monument to the instinct that is its germ--then, oh then,
Billot, it is a task that will make all shudder who can see beneath the
horizon.... I shall, however, persevere, for although I see obstacles,
I can perceive the end; and that end is splendid, Billot. It is not the
liberty of France alone that I dream of; it is the liberty of the
whole world. It is not the physical equality; it is equality before
the law,--equality of rights. It is not only the fraternity of our own
citizens, but of all nations.... Forward, then, and over the heaps of
our dead bodies may one day march the generations of which this boy here
is in the advanced guard!"
Though Dr. Gilbert has been in the Bastille, though he barely escapes
the bullet of a revolutionist, he tries to unite the throne and the
people. So, as we have seen, did Paine struggle until the King took
flight, and, over his own signature, branded all his pledges as extorted
lies. Henceforth for the King personally he has no respect; yet the
whole purpose of his life is now to save that of the prisoner. Besides
his humane horror of capital punishment, especially in a case which
involves the heads of thousands, Paine foresees Nemesis fashioning her
wheels in every part of Europe, and her rudder across the ocean,--where
America beholds in Louis XVI. her deliverer.
Paine's outlawry, announced by Kersaint in Convention, January 1st,
was more eloquent for wrath than he for clemency. Under such menaces the
majority for sparing Louis shrank with the New Year; French pride arose,
and with Danton was eager to defy despots by tossing to them the head of
a king. Poor Paine found his comrades retreating. What would a knowledge
of the French tongue have been worth to this leading republican of the
world, just then the one man sleeplessly seeking to save a Kings
life! He could not plead with his enraged republicans, who at length
overpowered even Brissot, so far as to draw him into the fatal plan of
voting for the King's death, coupled with submission to the verdict of
the people. Paine saw that there was at the moment no people, but
only an infuriated clan. He was now defending a forlorn hope, but he
struggled with a heroism that would have commanded the homage of Europe
had not its courts been also clans. He hit on a scheme which he hoped
might, in that last extremity, save the real revolution from a suicidal
inhumanity. It was the one statesmanlike proposal of the time: that
the King should be held as a hostage for the peaceful behavior of other
kings, and, when their war on France had ceased, banished to the United
States.
On January 15th, before the vote on the King's punishment was put, Paine
gave his manuscript address to the president: debate closed before
it could be read, and it was printed, He argued that the Assembly, in
bringing back Louis when he had abdicated and fled, was the more guilty;
and against his transgressions it should be remembered that by his aid
the shackles of America were broken.
"Let then those United States be the guard and the asylum of Louis
Capet. There, in the future, remote from the miseries and crimes of
royalty, he may learn from, the constant presence of public prosperity,
that the true system of government consists not in monarchs, but
in fair, equal, and honorable representation. In recalling this
circumstance, and submitting this proposal, I consider myself a citizen
of both countries. I submit it as an American who feels the debt of
gratitude he owes to every Frenchman. I submit it as a man, who, albeit
an adversary of kings, forgets not that they are subject to human
frailties. I support my proposal as a citizen of the French Republic,
because it appears to me the best and most politic measure that can be
adopted. As far as my experience in public life extends, I have ever
observed that the great mass of people are always just, both in their
intentions and their object; but the true method of attaining such
purpose does not always appear at once. The English nation had groaned
under the Stuart despotism. Hence Charles I. was executed; but Charles
II. was restored to all the powers his father had lost. Forty years
later the same family tried to re-establish their oppression; the nation
banished the whole race from its territories. The remedy was effectual;
the Stuart family sank into obscurity, merged itself in the masses, and
is now extinct."
He reminds the Convention that the king had two brothers out of the
country who might naturally desire his death: the execution of the king
might make them presently plausible pretenders to the throne, around
whom their foreign enemies would rally: while the man recognized by
foreign powers as the rightful monarch of France was living there could
be no such pretender.
"It has already been proposed to abolish the penalty of death, and it
is with infinite satisfaction that I recollect the humane and excellent
oration pronounced by Robespierre on the subject, in the constituent
Assembly. Monarchical governments have trained the human race to
sanguinary punishments, but the people should not follow the examples
of their oppressors in such vengeance. As France has been the first
of European nations to abolish royalty, let her also be the first to
abolish the punishment of death, and to find out a milder and more
effectual substitute."
This was admirable art. Under shelter of Robespierre's appeal against
the death penalty, the "Mountain"* could not at the moment break
the force of Paine's plea by reminding the Convention of his Quaker
sentiments. It will be borne in mind that up to this time Robespierre
was not impressed, nor Marat possessed, by the homicidal demon.
Marat had felt for Paine a sort of contemptuous kindness, and one day
privately said to him: "It is you, then, who believe in a republic; you
have too much sense to believe in such a dream." Robespierre, according
to Lamartine, "affected for the cosmopolitan radicalism of Paine the
respect of a neophite for ideas not understood." Both leaders now
suspected that Paine had gone over to the "Brissotins," as the
Girondists were beginning to be called. However, the Brissotins, though
a majority, had quailed before the ferocity with which the Jacobins had
determined on the king's death. M. Taine declares that the victory of
the minority in this case was the familiar one of reckless violence over
the more civilized--the wild beast over the tame. Louis Blanc denies
that the Convention voted, as one of them said, under poignards; but the
signs of fear are unmistakeable.
* So called from the high benches on which these members
sat. The seats of the Girondists on the floor were called
the "Plain," and after their over-throw the "Marsh."
Vergniaud had declared it an insult for any one to suppose he would vote
for the king's death, but he voted for it. Villette was threatened with
death if he did not vote for that of the king. Sieves, who had attacked
Paine for republicanism, voted death. "What," he afterward said--"what
were the tribute of my glass of wine in that torrent of brandy?" But
Paine did not withhold his cup of cold water. When his name was called
he cried out: "I vote for the detention of Louis till the end of
the war, and after that his perpetual banishment." He spoke his well
prepared vote in French, and may have given courage to others. For even
under poignards--the most formidable being liability to a charge of
royalism--the vote had barely gone in favor of death.*
The fire-breathing Mountain felt now that its supremacy was settled.
It had learned its deadly art of conquering a thinking majority
by recklessness. But suddenly another question was sprung upon the
Convention: Shall the execution be immediate, or shall there be delay?
The Mountain groans and hisses as the question is raised, but the
dictation had not extended to this point, and the question must be
discussed. Here is one more small chance for Paine's poor royal client.
Can the execution only be postponed it will probably never be executed.
* Upwards of three hundred voted with Paine, who says that
the majority by which death was carried, unconditionally,
was twenty-five. As a witness who had watched the case, his
testimony may correct the estimate of Carlyle:
"Death by a small majority of Fifty-three. Nay, if we deduct
from the one side, and add to the other, a certain Twenty-
six who said Death but coupled some faintest ineffectual
surmise of mercy with it, the majority will be but One."
See also Paine's "Memoire, etc.. a Monroe."
Unfortunately Marat, whose thirst for the King's blood is almost
cannibalistic, can read on Paine's face his elation. He realizes
that this American, with Washington behind him, has laid before the
Convention a clear and consistent scheme for utilizing the royal
prisoner. The king's neck under a suspended knife, it will rest with
the foreign enemies of France whether it shall fall or not; while
the magnanimity of France and its respect for American gratitude will
prevail. Paine, then, must be dealt with somehow in this new debate
about delay.
He might, indeed, have been dealt with summarily had not the _Moniteur_
done him an opportune service; on January 17th and 18th it printed
Paine's unspoken argument for mercy, along with Erskine's speech at his
trial in London, and the verdict. So on the 19th, when Paine entered the
Convention, it was with the prestige not only of one outlawed by Great
Britain for advocating the Rights of Man, but of a representative of
the best Englishmen and their principles. It would be vain to assail
the author's loyalty to the republic, That he would speak that day was
certain, for on the morrow (20th) the final vote was to be taken. The
Mountain could not use on Paine their weapon against Girondins; they
could not accuse the author of the "Rights of Man" of being royalist
When he had mounted the tribune, and the clerk (Bancal, Franklin's
friend) was beginning to read his speech, Marat cried, "I submit that
Thomas Paine is incompetent to vote on this question; being a Quaker his
religious principles are opposed to the death-penalty." There was
great confusion for a time. The anger of the Jacobins was extreme,
says Guizot, and "they refused to listen to the speech of Paine, the
American, till respect for his courage gained him a hearing."* Demands
for freedom of speech gradually subdued the interruptions, and the
secretary proceeded:
"Very sincerely do I regret the Convention's vote of yesterday for
death. I have the advantage of some experience; it is near twenty years
that I have been engaged in the cause of liberty, having contributed
something to it in the revolution of the United States of America. My
language has always been that of liberty and humanity, and I know by
experience that nothing so exalts a nation as the union of these two
principles, under all circumstances. I know that the public mind of
France, and particularly that of Paris, has been heated and irritated
by the dangers to which they have been exposed; but could we carry
our thoughts into the future, when the dangers are ended, and the
irritations forgotten, what to-day seems an act of justice may then
appear an act of vengeance. [_Murmurs_.] My anxiety for the cause of
France has become for the moment concern for its honor. If, on my
return to America, I should employ myself on a history of the French
Revolution, I had rather record a thousand errors dictated by humanity,
than one inspired by a justice too severe. I voted against an appeal to
the people, because it appeared to me that the Convention was needlessly
wearied on that point; but I so voted in the hope that this Assembly
would pronounce against death, and for the same punishment that the
nation would have voted, at least in my opinion, that is, for reclusion
during the war and banishment thereafter. That is the punishment most
efficacious, because it includes the whole family at once, and none
other can so operate. I am still against the appeal to the primary
assemblies, because there is a better method. This Convention has been
elected to form a Constitution, which will be submitted to the primary
assemblies. After its acceptance a necessary consequence will be an
election, and another Assembly.
* "History of France," vi., p. 136.
We cannot suppose that the present Convention will last more than five
or six months. The choice of new deputies will express the national
opinion on the propriety or impropriety of your sentence, with as much
efficacy as if those primary assemblies had been consulted on it. ''As
the duration of our functions here cannot be long, it is a part of our
duty to consider the interests of those who shall replace us. If by
any act of ours the number of the nation's enemies shall be needlessly
increased, and that of its friends diminished,--at a time when the
finances may be more strained than to-day,--we should not be justifiable
for having thus unnecessarily heaped obstacles in the path of our
successors. Let us therefore not be precipitate in our decisions.
"France has but one ally--the United States of America. That is the only
nation that can furnish France with naval provisions, for the kingdoms
of northern Europe are, or soon will be, at war with her. It happens,
unfortunately, that the person now under discussion is regarded in
America as a deliverer of their country. I can assure you that his
execution will there spread universal sorrow, and it is in your power
not thus to wound the feelings of your ally. Could I speak the French
language I would descend to your bar, and in their name become your
petitioner to respite the execution of the sentence on Louis."
Here were loud murmurs from the "Mountain," answered with demands for
liberty of opinion. Thuriot sprang to his feet crying, "This is not the
language of Thomas Paine." Marat mounted the tribune and asked Paine
some questions, apparently in English, then descending he said to the
Assembly in French: "I denounce the interpreter, and I maintain that
such is not the opinion of Thomas Paine. It is a wicked and faithless
translation."*
* "Venant d'un democrate tel que Thomas Paine, d'un homme
qui avait vecu parmi les Americains, d'un penseur, cette
declaration parut si dangereuse a Marat que, pour en
detruire l'effet, il n'hesita pas a s'ecrier: 'Je denonce
le truchement. Je soutiens que ce n'est point la l'opinion
do Thomas Paine. C'est une traduction infidele.'"--Louis
Blanc. See also "Histoire Parliamentaire," xxiii., p. 250.
These words, audacious as mendacious, caused a tremendous uproar. Garran
came to the rescue of the frightened clerk, declaring that he had read
the original, and the translation was correct. Paine stood silent and
calm during the storm. The clerk proceeded:
"Your Executive Committee will nominate an ambassador to Philadelphia;
my sincere wish is that he may announce to America that the National
Convention of France, out of pure friendship to America, has consented
to respite Louis. That people, your only ally, have asked you by my vote
to delay the execution.
"Ah, citizens, give not the tyrant of England the triumph of seeing the
man perish on a scaffold who helped my dear brothers of America to break
his chains!"
At the conclusion of this speech Marat "launched himself into the middle
of the hall" and cried out that Paine had "voted against the punishment
of death because he was a Quaker." Paine replied, "I voted against it
both morally and politically."
Had the vote been taken that day perhaps Louis might have escaped.
Brissot, shielded from charges of royalism by Paine's republican fame,
now strongly supported his cause. "A cruel precipitation," he cried,
"may alienate our friends in England, Ireland, America. Take care! The
opinion of European peoples is worth to you armies!" But all this only
brought out the Mountain's particular kind of courage; they were ready
to defy the world--Washington included--in order to prove that a King's
neck was no more than any other man's. Marat's clan--the "Nihilists"
of the time, whose strength was that they stopped at nothing--had
twenty-four hours to work in; they surrounded the Convention next day
with a mob howling for "justice!" Fifty-five members were absent; of
the 690 present a majority of seventy decided that Louis XVI. should die
within twenty-four hours.
A hundred years have passed since that tragedy of poor Louis; graves
have given up their dead; secrets of the hearts that then played their
part are known. The world can now judge between England's Outlaw and
England's King of that day. For it is established, as we have seen,
both by English and French archives, that while Thomas Paine was toiling
night and day to save the life of Louis that life lay in the hand of the
British Ministry. Some writers question the historic truth of the offer
made by Danton, but none can question the refusal of intercession, urged
by Fox and others at a time when (as Count d'Estaing told Morris) the
Convention was ready to give Pitt the whole French West Indies to keep
him quiet. It was no doubt with this knowledge that Paine declared from
the tribune that George III. would triumph in the execution of the King
who helped America to break England's chains. Brissot also knew it when
with weighed words he reported for his Committee (January 12th): "The
grievance of the British Cabinet against France is not that Louis is in
judgment, but that Thomas Paine wrote 'The Rights of Man.'" "The militia
were armed," says Louis Blanc, "in the south-east of England troops
received order to march to London, the meeting of Parliament was
advanced forty days, the Tower was reinforced by a new garrison, in
fine there was unrolled a formidable preparation of war against--Thomas
Paine's book on the Rights of Man!"* Incredible as this may appear the
debates in the House of Commons, on which it is fairly founded, would
be more incredible were they not duly reported in the "Parliamentary
History."** In the debates on the Alien Bill, permitting the King
to order any foreigner out of the country at will, on making
representations to the French Convention in behalf of the life of Louis,
on augmenting the military forces with direct reference to France, the
recent trial of Paine was rehearsed, and it was plainly shown that the
object of the government was to suppress freedom of the press by Terror.
Erskine was denounced for defending Paine and for afterwards attending
a meeting of the "Society of Friends of the Liberty of the Press," to
whose resolutions on Paine's case his name was attached. Erskine found
gallant defenders in the House, among them Fox, who demanded of Pitt:
"Can you not prosecute Paine without an army?" Burke at this time
enacted a dramatic scene. Having stated that three thousand daggers had
been ordered at Birmingham by an Englishman, he drew from his pocket a
dagger, cast it on the floor of the House of Commons, and cried:
"That is what we are to get from an alliance with France!"
Paine--Paine--Paine--was the burden laid on Pitt, who had said to Lady
Hester Stanhope: "Tom Paine is quite right."
* "Histoire de la Revolution," vol. viii., p. 96.
** Vol. xxv.
That Thomas Paine and his "Rights of Man" were the actual cause of the
English insults to which their declaration of war replied was so well
understood in the French Convention that its first answer to the menaces
was to appoint Paine and Condorcet to write an address to the English
people.*
It is noticeable that on the question whether the judgment on the King's
fate should be submitted to the people, Paine voted "No." His belief
in the right of all to representation implied distrust of the immediate
voice of the masses. The King had said that if his case were referred to
the people "he should be massacred." Gouverneur Morris had heard this,
and no doubt communicated it to Paine, who was in consultation with him
on his plan of sending Louis to America.** Indeed, it is probable that
popular suffrage would have ratified the decree. Nevertheless, it was a
fair "appeal to the people" which Paine made, after the fatal verdict,
in expressing to the Convention his belief that the people would not
have done so. For after the decree the helplessness of the prisoner
appealed to popular compassion, and on the fatal day the tide had
turned. Four days after the execution the American Minister writes
to Jefferson: "The greatest care was taken to prevent a concourse of
people. This proves a conviction that the majority was not favorable to
that severe measure. In fact the great mass of the people mourned the
fate of their unhappy prince."
* "Le Departement des Affaires Etrangeres pendant la
Revolution, 1787-1804." Par Frederic Masson, Bibliothecaire
da Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres. Paris, 1877, p.
273.
** Morris' "Diary," ii., pp. 19, 27. 32.
To Paine the death of an "unhappy prince" was no more a subject
for mourning than that of the humblest criminal--for, with whatever
extenuating circumstances, a criminal he was to the republic he had
sworn to administer. But the impolicy of the execution, the resentment
uselessly incurred, the loss of prestige in America, were felt by Paine
as a heavy blow to his cause--always the international republic. He was,
however, behind the scenes enough to know that the blame rested
mainly on America's old enemy and his league of foreign courts against
liberated France. The man who, when Franklin said "Where liberty is,
there is my country," answered "Where liberty is not, there is mine,"
would not despair of the infant republic because of its blunders.
Attributing these outbursts to maddening conspiracies around and within
the new-born nation, he did not believe there could be peace in Europe
so long as it was ruled by George III. He therefore set himself to
the struggle, as he had done in 1776. Moreover, Paine has faith in
Providence.*
* "The same spirit of fortitude that insured success to
America will insure it to France, for it is impossible to
conquer a nation determined to be free.... Man is ever a
stranger to the ways by which Providence regulates the order
of things. The interference of foreign despots may serve to
introduce into their own enslaved countries the principles
they come to oppose. Liberty and equality are blessings too
great to be the inheritance of France alone. It is honour to
her to be their first champion; and she may now say to her
enemies, with a mighty voice, 'O, ye Austrians, ye Prussians!
ye who now turn your bayonets against us, it is for you,
it is for all Europe, it Is for all mankind, and not for
France alone, that she raises the standard of Liberty and
Equality!'"--Paine's address to the Convention (September
25, 1792) after taking his seat.
At this time, it should be remembered, opposition to capital punishment
was confined to very few outside of the despised sect of Quakers. In the
debate three, besides Paine, gave emphatic expression to that sentiment,
Manuel, Condorcet,--Robespierre! The former, in giving his vote against
death, said: "To Nature belongs the right of death. Despotism has taken
it from her; Liberty will return it" As for Robespierre, his argument
was a very powerful reply to Paine, who had reminded him of the bill
he had introduced into the old National Assembly for the abolition of
capital punishment. He did, indeed, abhor it, he said; it was not his
fault if his views had been disregarded. But why should men who then
opposed him suddenly revive the claims of humanity when the penalty
happened to fall upon a King? Was the penalty good enough for the
people, but not for a King? If there were any exception in favor of such
a punishment, it should be for a royal criminal.
This opinion of Robespierre is held by some humane men. The present
writer heard from Professor Francis W. Newman--second to none in
philanthropy and compassionateness--a suggestion that the death penalty
should be reserved for those placed at the head of affairs who betray
their trust, or set their own above the public interests to the injury
of a Commonwealth.
The real reasons for the execution of the King closely resemble those of
Washington for the execution of Major Andre, notwithstanding the
sorrow of the country, with which the Commander sympathized. The equal
nationality of the United States, repudiated by Great Britain, was in
question. To hang spies was, however illogically, a conventional usage
among nations. Major Andre must die, therefore, and must be refused the
soldier's death for which he petitioned. For a like reason Europe
must be shown that the French Convention is peer of their scornful
Parliaments; and its fundamental principle, the equality of men, could
not admit a King's escape from the penalty which would be unhesitatingly
inflicted on a "Citizen." The King had assumed the title of Citizen,
had worn the republican cockade; the apparent concession of royal
inviolability, in the moment of his betrayal of the compromise made with
him, could be justified only on the grounds stated by Paine,--impolicy
of slaying their hostage, creating pretenders, alienating America;
and the honor of exhibiting to the world, by a salient example, the
Republic's magnanimity in contrast with the cruelty of Kings.
CHAPTER II. AN OUTLAWED ENGLISH AMBASSADOR
Soon after Paine had taken his seat in the Convention, Lord Fortescue
wrote to Miles, an English agent in Paris, a letter fairly expressive of
the feelings, fears, and hopes of his class.
"Tom Paine is just where he ought to be--a member of the Convention of
Cannibals. One would have thought it impossible that any society upon
the face of the globe should have been fit for the reception of such a
being until the late deeds of the National Convention have shown them to
be most fully qualified. His vocation will not be complete, nor theirs
either, till his head finds its way to the top of a pike, which will
probably not be long first."*
* This letter, dated September 26, 1792, appears in the
Miles Correspondence (London, 1890). There are indications
that Miles was favorably disposed towards Paine, and on that
account, perhaps, was subjected to influence by his
superiors. As an example of the way in which just minds were
poisoned towards Paine, a note of Miles may be mentioned. He
says he was "told by Col. Bosville, a declared friend of
Paine, that his manners and conversation were coarse, and he
loved the brandy bottle." But just as this Miles
Correspondence was appearing in London, Dr. Grece found the
manuscript diary of Rickman, who had discovered (as two
entries show) that this "declared friend of Paine," Col.
Bosville, and professed friend of himself, was going about
uttering injurious falsehoods concerning him (Rickman),
seeking to alienate his friends at the moment when he most
needed them. Rickman was a bookseller engaged in circulating
Paine's works. There is little doubt that this wealthy Col.
Bosville was at the time unfriendly to the radicals. He was
staying in Paris on Paine's political credit, while
depreciating him.
But if Paine was so fit for such a Convention, why should they behead
him? The letter betrays a real perception that Paine possesses humane
principles, and an English courage, which would bring him into danger.
This undertone of Fortescue's invective represented the profound
confidence of Paine's adherents in England, When tidings came of the
King's trial and execution, whatever glimpses they gained of their
outlawed leader showed him steadfast as a star caught in one wave and
another of that turbid tide. Many, alas, needed apologies, but Paine
required none. That one Englishman, standing on the tribune for justice
and humanity, amid three hundred angry Frenchmen in uproar, was as
sublime a sight as Europe witnessed in those days. To the English
radical the outlawry of Paine was as the tax on light, which was
presently walling up London windows, or extorting from them the means of
war against ideas.* The trial of Paine had elucidated nothing, except
that, like Jupiter, John Bull had the thunderbolts, and Paine the
arguments. Indeed, it is difficult to discover any other Englishman who
at the moment pre-eminently stood for principles now proudly called
English.
* In a copy of the first edition of "The Rights of Man,"
which I bought in London, I found, as a sort of book-mark, a
bill for 1L. 6s. 8d., two quarters' window-tax, due from Mr.
Williamson, Upper Fitzroy Place. Windows closed with bricks
are still seen in some of the gloomiest parts of London.
I have in manuscript a bitter anathema of the time:
"God made the Light, and saw that it was good: Pitt laid a
tax on it,--G---- d------ his blood!"
But Paine too presently held thunderbolts. Although his efforts to save
Louis had offended the "Mountain," and momentarily brought him into
the danger Lord Fortescue predicted, that party was not yet in the
ascendant. The Girondists were still in power, and though some of their
leaders had bent before the storm, that they might not be broken, they
had been impressed both by the courage and the tactics of Paine. "The
Girondists consulted Paine," says Lamartine, "and placed him on the
Committee of Surveillance." At this moment many Englishmen were in
France, and at a word from Paine some of their heads might have mounted
on the pike which Lord Fortescue had imaginatively prepared for the head
that wrote "The Rights of Man." There remained, for instance, Mr. Munro,
already mentioned. This gentleman, in a note preserved in the English
Archives, had written to Lord Grenville (September 8, 1792) concerning
Paine: "What must a nation come to that has so little discernment in
the election of their representatives, as to elect such a fellow?"
But having lingered in Paris after England's formal declaration of war
(February 11th), Munro was cast into prison. He owed his release to that
"fellow" Paine, and must be duly credited with having acknowledged it,
and changed his tone for the rest of his life,--which he probably owed
to the English committeeman. Had Paine met with the fate which Lords
Gower and Fortescue hoped, it would have gone hard with another eminent
countryman of theirs,--Captain Grimstone, R.A. This personage, during a
dinner party at the Palais Egalite, got into a controversy with Paine,
and, forgetting that the English Jove could not in Paris safely answer
argument with thunder, called Paine a traitor to his country and struck
him a violent blow. Death was the penalty of striking a deputy, and
Paine's friends were not unwilling to see the penalty inflicted on this
stout young Captain who had struck a man of fifty-six. Paine had much
trouble in obtaining from Barrere, of the Committee of Public Safety,
a passport out of the country for Captain Grimstone, whose travelling
expenses were supplied by the man he had struck.
In a later instance, related by Walter Savage Landor, Paine's generosity
amounted to quixotism. The story is finely told by Landor, who says in a
note: "This anecdote was communicated to me at Florence by Mr. Evans,
a painter of merit, who studied under Lawrence, and who knew personally
(Zachariah) Wilkes and Watt. In religion and politics he differed widely
from Paine."
"Sir," said he, "let me tell you what he did for me. My name is
Zachariah Wilkes. I was arrested in Paris and condemned to die. I had
no friend here; and it was a time when no friend would have served
me: Robespierre ruled. 'I am innocent!' I cried in desperation. 'I am
innocent, so help me God! I am condemned for the offence of another.'
I wrote a statement of my case with a pencil; thinking at first of
addressing it to my judge, then of directing it to the president of the
Convention. The jailer, who had been kind to me, gave me a gazette, and
told me not to mind seeing my name, so many were there before it.
"'O!' said I 'though you would not lend me your ink, do transmit this
paper to the president.'
"'No, my friend!' answered he gaily. 'My head is as good as yours, and
looks as well between the shoulders, to my liking. Why not send it (if
you send it anywhere) to the deputy Paine here?' pointing to a column in
the paper.
"'O God! he must hate and detest the name of Englishman: pelted,
insulted, persecuted, plundered...'
"'I could give it to him,' said the jailer.
"'Do then!' said I wildly. 'One man more shall know my innocence.' He
came within the half hour. I told him my name, that my employers were
Watt and Boulton of Birmingham, that I had papers of the greatest
consequence, that if I failed to transmit them, not only my life was
in question, but my reputation. He replied: 'I know your employers by
report only; there are no two men less favourable to the principles I
profess, but no two upon earth are honester. You have only one great
man among you: it is Watt; for Priestley is gone to America. The
church-and-king men would have japanned him. He left to these
philosophers of the rival school his house to try experiments on; and
you may know, better than I do, how much they found in it of carbon and
calx, of silex and argilla.'
"He examined me closer than my judge had done; he required my proofs.
After a long time I satisfied him. He then said, 'The leaders of the
Convention would rather have my life than yours. If by any means I can
obtain your release on my own security, will you promise me to return
within twenty days?' I answered, 'Sir, the security I can at present
give you, is trifling... I should say a mere nothing.'
"'Then you do not give me your word?' said he.
"'I give it and will redeem it.'
"He went away, and told me I should see him again when he could inform
me whether he had succeeded. He returned in the earlier part of the
evening, looked fixedly upon me, and said, 'Zachariah Wilkes! if you
do not return in twenty-four days (four are added) you will be the most
unhappy of men; for had you not been an honest one, you could not be
the agent of Watt and Boulton. I do not think I have hazarded much in
offering to take your place on your failure: such is the condition.' I
was speechless; he was unmoved. Silence was first broken by the jailer.
'He seems to get fond of the spot now he must leave it.' I had thrown my
arms upon the table towards my liberator, who sat opposite, and I rested
my head and breast upon it too, for my temples ached and tears had not
yet relieved them. He said, 'Zachanah! follow me to the carriage.' The
soldiers paid the respect due to his scarf, presenting arms, and drawing
up in file as we went along. The jailer called for a glass of wine, gave
it me, poured out another, and drank to our next meeting."*
Another instance may be related in Paine's own words, written (March 20,
1806) to a gentleman in New York.
"Sir,--I will inform you of what I know respecting General Miranda, with
whom I first became acquainted at New York, about the year 1783. He is a
man of talents and enterprise, and the whole of his life has been a life
of adventures.
"I went to Europe from New York in April, 1787. Mr. Jefferson was then
Minister from America to France, and Mr. Littlepage, a Virginian
(whom Mr. Jay knows), was agent for the king of Poland, at Paris. Mr.
Littlepage was a young man of extraordinary talents, and I first met
with him at Mr. Jefferson's house at dinner. By his intimacy with
the king of Poland, to whom also he was chamberlain, he became well
acquainted with the plans and projects of the Northern Powers of Europe.
He told me of Miranda's getting himself introduced to the Empress
Catharine of Russia, and obtaining a sum of money from her, four
thousand pounds sterling; but it did not appear to me what the object
was for which the money was given; it appeared a kind of retaining fee.
"After I had published the first part of the 'Rights of Man' in England,
in the year 1791, I met Miranda at the house of Turnbull and Forbes,
merchants, Devonshire Square, London. He had been a little before this
in the employ of Mr. Pitt, with respect to the affair of Nootka Sound,
but I did not at that time know it; and I will, in the course of this
letter, inform you how this connection between Pitt and Miranda ended;
for I know it of my own knowledge.
* Zachanah Wilkes did not fail to return, or Paine to greet
him with safety, and the words, "There is yet English blood
in England." But here Landor passes off into an imaginative
picture of villages rejoicing at the fall of Robespierre.
Paine himself had then been in prison seven months; so we
can only conjecture the means by which Zachariah was
liberated.--Lander's Works, London, 1853, i., p. 296.
"I published the second part of the 'Rights of Man' in London, in
February, 1792, and I continued in London till I was elected a member of
the French Convention, in September of that year; and went from London
to Paris to take my seat in the Convention, which was to meet the 20th
of that month. I arrived in Paris on the 19th. After the Convention met,
Miranda came to Paris, and was appointed general of the French army,
under General Dumouriez. But as the affairs of that army went wrong in
the beginning of the year 1793, Miranda was suspected, and was brought
under arrest to Paris to take his trial. He summoned me to appear to his
character, and also a Mr. Thomas Christie, connected with the house of
Turnbull and Forbes. I gave my testimony as I believed, which was, that
his leading object was and had been the emancipation of his country,
Mexico, from the bondage of Spain; for I did not at that time know of
his engagements with Pitt Mr. Christie's evidence went to show that
Miranda did not come to France as a necessitous adventurer; but believed
he came from public-spirited motives, and that he had a large sum of
money in the hands of Turnbull and Forbes. The house of Turnbull and
Forbes was then in a contract to supply Paris with flour. Miranda was
acquitted.
"A few days after his acquittal he came to see me, and in a few days
afterwards I returned his visit. He seemed desirous of satisfying me
that he was independent, and that he had money in the hands of Turnbull
and Forbes. He did not tell me of his affair with old Catharine of
Russia, nor did I tell him that I knew of it. But he entered into
conversation with respect to Nootka Sound, and put into my hands several
letters of Mr. Pitt's to him on that subject; amongst which was one
which I believe he gave me by mistake, for when I had opened it, and was
beginning to read it, he put forth his hand and said, 'O, that is not
the letter I intended'; but as the letter was short I soon got through
with it, and then returned it to him without making any remarks upon it.
The dispute with Spain was then compromised; and Pitt compromised with
Miranda for his services by giving him twelve hundred pounds sterling,
for this was the contents of the letter.
"Now if it be true that Miranda brought with him a credit upon certain
persons in New York for sixty thousand pounds sterling, it is not
difficult to suppose from what quarter the money came; for the opening
of any proposals between Pitt and Miranda was already made by the affair
of Nootka Sound. Miranda was in Paris when Mr. Monroe arrived there as
Minister; and as Miranda wanted to get acquainted with him, I cautioned
Mr. Monroe against him, and told him of the affair of Nootka Sound, and
the twelve hundred pounds.
"You are at liberty to make what use you please of this letter, and with
my name to it."
Here we find a paid agent of Pitt calling on outlawed Paine for aid,
by his help liberated from prison; and, when his true character is
accidentally discovered, and he is at the outlaw's mercy, spared,--no
doubt because this true English ambassador, who could not enter England,
saw that at the moment passionate vengeance had taken the place of
justice in Paris. Lord Gower had departed, and Paine must try and shield
even his English enemies and their agents, where, as in Miranda's case,
the agency did not appear to affect France. This was while his friends
in England were hunted down with ferocity.
In the earlier stages of the French Revolution there was much sympathy
with it among literary men and in the universities. Coleridge, Southey,
Wordsworth, were leaders in the revolutionary cult at Oxford and
Cambridge. By 1792, and especially after the institution of Paine's
prosecution, the repression became determined. The memoir of Thomas
Poole, already referred to, gives the experiences of a Somerset
gentleman, a friend of Coleridge. After the publication of Paine's
"Rights of Man" (1791) he became a "political Ishmaelite." "He made
his appearance amongst the wigs and powdered locks of his kinsfolk and
acquaintance, male and female, without any of the customary powder in
his hair, which innocent novelty was a scandal to all beholders, seeing
that it was the outward and visible sign of a love of innovation, a
well-known badge of sympathy with democratic ideas."
Among Poole's friends, at Stowey, was an attorney named Symes, who
lent him Paine's "Rights of Man." After Paine's outlawry Symes met a
cabinet-maker with a copy of the book, snatched it out of his hand, tore
it up, and, having learned that it was lent him by Poole, propagated
about the country that he (Poole) was distributing seditious literature
about the country. Being an influential man, Poole prevented the burning
of Paine in effigy at Stowey. As time goes on this country-gentleman
and scholar finds the government opening his letters, and warning his
friends that he is in danger.
"It was," he writes to a friend, "the boast an Englishman was wont to
make that he could think, speak, and write whatever he thought proper,
provided he violated no law, nor injured any individual. But now an
absolute controul exists, not indeed over the imperceptible operations
of the mind, for those no power of man can controul; but, what is the
same thing, over the effects of those operations, and if among these
effects, that of speaking is to be checked, the soul is as much enslaved
as the body in a cell of the Bastille. The man who once feels, nay
fancies, this, is a slave. It shows as if the suspicious secret
government of an Italian Republic had replaced the open, candid
government of the English laws."
As Thomas Poole well represents the serious and cultured thought of
young England in that time, it is interesting to read his judgment on
the king's execution and the imminent war.
"Many thousands of human beings will be sacrificed in the ensuing
contest, and for what? To support three or four individuals, called
arbitrary kings, in the situation which they have usurped. I consider
every Briton who loses his life in the war us much murdered as the
King of France, and every one who approves the war, as signing the
death-warrant of each soldier or sailor that falls.... The excesses
in France are great; but who are the authors of them? The Emperor of
Germany, the King of Prussia, and Mr. Burke. Had it not been for their
impertinent interference, I firmly believe the King of France would be
at this moment a happy monarch, and that people would be enjoying every
advantage of political liberty.... The slave-trade, you will see, will
not be abolished, because to be humane and honest now is to be a traitor
to the constitution, a lover of sedition and licentiousness! But this
universal depression of the human mind cannot last long."
It was in this spirit that the defence of a free press was undertaken
in England. That thirty years' war was fought and won on the works of
Paine. There were some "Lost Leaders": the kings execution, the reign
of terror, caused reaction in many a fine spirit; but the rank and file
followed their Thomas Paine with a faith that crowned heads might envy.
The London men knew Paine thoroughly. The treasures of the world would
not draw him, nor any terrors drive him, to the side of cruelty
and inhumanity. Their eye was upon him. Had Paine, after the king's
execution, despaired of the republic there might have ensued some
demoralization among his followers in London. But they saw him by the
side of the delivered prisoner of the Bastille, Brissot, an author well
known in England, by the side of Condorcet and others of Franklin's
honored circle, engaged in death-struggle with the fire-breathing dragon
called "The Mountain." That was the same unswerving man they had been
following, and to all accusations against the revolution their answer
was--Paine is still there! A reign of terror in England followed
the outlawry of Paine. Twenty-four men, at one time or another, were
imprisoned, fined, or transported for uttering words concerning abuses
such as now every Englishman would use concerning the same. Some who
sold Paine's works were imprisoned before Paine's trial, while the
seditious character of the books was not yet legally settled. Many were
punished after the trial, by both fine and imprisonment. Newspapers were
punished for printing extracts, and for having printed them before the
trial.* For this kind of work old statutes passed for other purposes
were impressed, new statutes framed, until Fox declared the Bill of
Rights repealed, the constitution cut up by the roots, and the obedience
of the people to such "despotism" no longer "a question of moral
obligation and duty, but of prudence."*
* The first trial after Paine's, that of Thomas Spence
(February 26, 1793), for selling "The Rights of Man," failed
through a flaw in the indictment, but the mistake did not
occur again. At the same time William Holland was awarded a
year's imprisonment and L100 fine for selling "Letter to the
Addressers." H. D. Symonds, for publishing "Rights of Man,"
L20 fine and two years; f or "Letter to the Addressers,"
one year, L100 fine, with sureties in L1,000 for three
years, and imprisonment till the fine be paid and sureties
given. April 17, 1793, Richard Phillips, printer, Leicester,
eighteen months. May 8th, J. Ridgway, London, selling
"Rights of Man," L100 and one year; "Letter to the
Addressers," one year, L100 fine; in each case sureties in
L1,000, with imprisonment until fines paid and sureties
given. Richard Peart, "Rights" and "Letter," three months.
William Belcher, "Rights" and "Letter," three months. Daniel
Holt, L50, four years. Messrs. Robinson, L200. Eaton and
Thompson, the latter in Birmingham, were acquitted. Clio
Rickman escaped punishment by running over to Paris. Dr.
Currie (1793) writes: "The prosecutions that are commenced
all over England against printers, publishers, etc., would
astonish you; and most of these are for offences committed
many months ago. The printer of the Manchester Herald has
had seven different indictments preferred against him for
paragraphs in his paper; and six different indictments for
selling or disposing of six different copies of Paine,--all
previous to the trial of Paine. The man was opulent,
supposed worth ment by running over to Paris. Dr. Currie
(1793) writes: *' The prosecutions that are commenced all
over England against printers, publishers, etc., would
astonish you; and most of these are for offences committed
many months ago. The printer of the Manchester Herald has
had seven different indictments preferred against him for
paragraphs in his paper; and six different indictments for
selling or disposing of six different copies of Paine,--all
previous to the trial of Paine. The man was opulent,
supposed worth ment by running over to Paris. Dr. Currie
(1793) writes: "The prosecutions that are commenced all
over England against printers, publishers, etc., would
astonish you; and most of these are for offences committed
many months ago. The printer of the Manchester Herald has
had seven different indictments preferred against him for
paragraphs in his paper; and six different indictments for
selling or disposing of six different copies of Paine,--all
previous to the trial of Paine. The man was opulent,
supposed worth L20,000; but these different actions will
ruin him, as they were intended to do."--"Currie's Life,"
i., p. 185. See Buckle's "History of Civilization," etc.,
American ed., p. 352. In the cases where "gentlemen" were
found distributing the works the penalties were ferocious.
Fische Palmer was sentenced to seven years' transportation.
Thomas Muir, for advising persons to read "the works of that
wretched outcast Paine" (the Lord Advocate's words) was
sentenced to fourteen years' transportation. This sentence
was hissed. The tipstaff being ordered to take those who
hissed into custody, replied: "My lord, they 're all
hissing."
From his safe retreat in Paris bookseller Rickman wrote his impromptu:
"Hail Briton's land!
Hail freedom's shore!
Far happier than of old;
For in thy blessed realms no more
The Rights of Man are sold!"
The famous town-crier of Bolton, who reported to his masters that he
had been round that place "and found in it neither the rights of man
nor common sense," made a statement characteristic of the time. The
aristocracy and gentry had indeed lost their humanity and their sense
under a disgraceful panic. Their serfs, unable to read, were fairly
represented by those who, having burned Paine in effigy, asked their
employer if there was "any other gemman he would like burnt, for a glass
o' beer."
* "Pari. Hist.," xxxii., p. 383.
The White Bear (now replaced by the Criterion Restaurant) no longer knew
its little circle of radicals. A symbol of how they were trampled out
is discoverable in the "T. P." shoe-nails. These nails, with heads so
lettered, were in great request among the gentry, who had only to hold
up their boot-soles to show how they were trampling on Tom Paine and his
principles. This at any rate was accurate. Manufacturers of vases also
devised ceramic anathemas.*
* There are two Paine pitchers in the Museum at Brighton,
England. Both were made at Leeds, one probably before
Paine's trial, since it presents a respectable full-length
portrait, holding in his hand a book, and beneath, the words:
"Mr. Thomas Paine, Author of The Rights of Man." The other
shows a serpent with Paine's head, two sides being adorned
with the following lines:
"God save the King, and all his subjects too,
Likewise his forces and commanders true,
May he their rights forever hence Maintain
Against all strife occasioned by Tom Paine."
"Prithee Tom Paine why wilt thou meddling be
In others' business which concerns not thee;
For while thereon thou dost extend thy cares
Thou dost at home neglect thine own affairs."
"God save the King!"
"Observe the wicked and malicious man
Projecting all the mischief that he can."
In all of this may be read the frantic fears of the King and aristocracy
which were driving the Ministry to make good Paine's aphorism, "There
is no English Constitution." An English Constitution was, however, in
process of formation,--in prisons, in secret conclaves, in lands of
exile, and chiefly in Paine's small room in Paris. Even in that time of
Parisian turbulence and peril the hunted liberals of England found more
security in France than in their native land.* For the eyes of the
English reformer of that period, seeing events from prison or exile,
there was a perspective such as time has now supplied to the historian.
It is still difficult to distribute the burden of shame fairly. Pitt
was unquestionably at first anxious to avoid war. That the King was
determined on the war is certain; he refused to notice Wilberforce when
he appeared at court after his separation from Pitt on that point.
* When William Pitt died in 1806,--crushed under disclosures
in the impeachment of Lord Melville,--the verdict of many
sufferers was expressed in an "Epitaph Impromptu" (MS.)
found among the papers of Thomas Rickman. It has some
historic interest.
"Reader! with eye indignant view this bier;
The foe of all the human race lies here.
With talents small, and those directed, too,
Virtue and truth and wisdom to subdue,
He lived to every noble motive blind,
And died, the execration of mankind.
"Millions were butchered by his damned plan
To violate each sacred right of man;
Exulting he o'er earth each misery hurled,
And joyed to drench in tears and blood, the world.
"Myriads of beings wretched he has made
By desolating war, his favourite trade,
Who, robbed of friends and dearest ties, are left
Of every hope and happiness bereft.
"In private life made up of fuss and pride,
Not e'en his vices leaned to virtue's side;
Unsound, corrupt, and rotten at the core,
His cold and scoundrel heart was black all o'er;
Nor did one passion ever move his mind
That bent towards the tender, warm, and kind.
"Tyrant, and friend to war! we hail the day
When Death, to bless mankind, made thee his prey,
And rid the earth of all could earth disgrace,--
The foulest, bloodiest scourge of man's oppressed race."
But the three attempts on his life, and his mental infirmity, may
be pleaded for George III. Paine, in his letter to Dundas, wrote
"Madjesty"; when Rickman objected, he said: "Let it stand." And it
stands now as the best apology for the King, while it rolls on Pitt's
memory the guilt of a twenty-two years' war for the subjugation of
thought and freedom. In that last struggle of the barbarism surviving
in civilization, it was shown that the madness of a populace was
easily distanced by the cruelty of courts. Robespierre and Marat were
humanitarian beside George and his Ministers; the Reign of Terror,
and all the massacres of the French Revolution put together, were
child's-play compared with the anguish and horrors spread through Europe
by a war whose pretext was an execution England might have prevented.
CHAPTER III. REVOLUTION VS. CONSTITUTION
The French revolutionists have long borne responsibility for the
first declaration of war in 1793. But from December 13, 1792, when the
Painophobia Parliament began its debates, to February 1st, when France
proclaimed itself at war with England, the British government had done
little else than declare war--and prepare war--against France. Pitt,
having to be re-elected, managed to keep away from Parliament for
several days at its opening, and the onslaught was assumed by Burke. He
began by heaping insults on France. On December 15th he boasted that
he had not been cajoled by promise of promotion or pension, though he
presently, on the same evening, took his seat for the first time on the
Treasury bench. In the "Parliamentary History" (vols. xxx. and xxxi.)
may be found Burke's epithets on France,--the "republic of assassins,"
"Cannibal Castle," "nation of murderers," "gang of plunderers,"
"murderous atheists," "miscreants," "scum of the earth." His vocabulary
grew in grossness, of course, after the King's execution and the
declaration of war, but from the first it was ribaldry and abuse. And
this did not come from a private member, but from the Treasury bench. He
was supported by a furious majority which stopped at no injustice.
Thus the Convention was burdened with guilt of the September massacres,
though it was not then in existence. Paine's works being denounced,
Erskine reminded the House of the illegality of so influencing a trial
not yet begun. He was not listened to. Fox and fifty other earnest men
had a serious purpose of trying to save the King's life, and proposed
to negotiate with the Convention. Burke fairly foamed at the motions
to that end, made by Fox and Lord Lansdowne. What, negotiate with such
villains! To whom is our agent to be accredited? Burke draws a comic
picture of the English ambassador entering the Convention, and, when he
announces himself as from "George Third, by the grace of God," denounced
by Paine. "Are we to humble ourselves before Judge Paine?" At this point
Whetstone made a disturbance and was named. There were some who found
Burke's trifling intolerable. Mr. W. Smith reminded the House that
Cromwell's ambassadors had been received by Louis XIV. Fox drew a
parallel between the contemptuous terms used toward the French, and
others about "Hancock and his crew," with whom Burke advised treaty,
and with whom His Majesty did treat. All this was answered by further
insults to France, these corresponding with a series of practical
injuries. Lord Gower had been recalled August 17th, after the formation
of a republic, and all intercourse with the French Minister in London,
Chauvelin, was terminated. In violation of the treaty of 1786, the
agents of France were refused permission to purchase grain and arms
in England, and their vessels loaded with provisions seized. The
circulation of French bonds, issued in 1790, was prohibited in England.
A coalition had been formed with the enemies of France, the Emperor
of Austria and the King of Prussia, Finally, on the execution of Louis
XVI., Chauvelin was ordered (January 24th) to leave England in eight
days. Talleyrand remained, but Chauvelin was kicked out of the country,
so to say, simply because the Convention had recognized him. This
appeared a plain _casus belli_, and was answered by the declaration of
the Convention in that sense (February 1st), which England answered ten
days later.*
* It was stipulated in the treaty of commerce between
France and England.
In all this Paine recognized the hand of Burke. While his adherents in
England, as we have seen, were finding in Pitt a successor to Satan,
there is a notable absence from Paine's writings and letters of any such
animosity towards that Minister. He concluded at Paris (1786) that the
sending away an ambassador by either party, should be taken as an act of
hostility by the other party. The declaration of war (February, 1793)
by the Convention... was made in exact conformity to this article in
the treaty; for it was not a declaration of war against England, but a
declaration that the French republic is in war with England; the first
act of hostility having been committed by England. The declaration
was made on Chauvelin's return to France, and in consequence of
it. "Paine's "Address to the People of France" (1797). The words of the
declaration of war, following the list of injuries, are: "La Convention
Nationale declare, au nom de la nation Francaise, qu'attendu les actes
multiplies et d'agressions ci-dessus mentionnes, la republique Francaise
est en guerre avec le roi d'Angleterre." The solemn protest of Lords
Lauderdale, Lansdowne, and Derby, February 1st, against the address
in answer to the royal message, before France had spoken, regards that
address as a demonstration of universal war. The facts and the situation
are carefully set forth by Louis Blanc, "Histoire de la Revolution,"
tome viii., p. 93 seq. regarded Pitt as a victim. "The father of Pitt,"
he once wrote, "when a member of the House of Commons, exclaiming one
day, during a former war, against the enormous and ruinous expense of
German connections, as the offspring of the Hanover succession, and
borrowing a metaphor from the story of Prometheus, cried out: 'Thus,
like Prometheus, is Britain chained to the barren rock of Hanover,
whilst the imperial eagle preys upon her vitals.'" It is probable that
on the intimations from Pitt, at the close of 1792, of his desire for
private consultations with friendly Frenchmen, Paine entered into the
honorable though unauthorized conspiracy for peace which was terminated
by the expulsion of Chauvelin. In the light of later events, and the
desertion of Dumouriez, these overtures of Pitt made through Talleyrand
(then in London) were regarded by the French leaders, and are still
regarded by French writers, as treacherous. But no sufficient reason
is given for doubting Pitt's good faith in that matter. Writing to
the President (Washington), December 28, 1792, the American Minister,
Gouverneur Morris, states the British proposal to be:
"France shall deliver the royal family to such branch of the Bourbons as
the King may choose, and shall recall her troops from the countries
they now occupy. In this event Britain will send hither a Minister and
acknowledge the Republic, and mediate a peace with the Emperor and King
of Prussia. I have several reasons to believe that this information is
not far from the truth."
It is true that Pitt had no agent in France whom he might not
have disavowed, and that after the fury with which the Painophobia
Parliament, under lead of Burke, inspired by the King, had opened, could
hardly have maintained any peaceful terms. Nevertheless, the friends
of peace in France secretly acted on this information, which Gouverneur
Morris no doubt received from Paine. A grand dinner was given by Paine,
at the Hotel de Ville, to Dumouriez, where this brilliant General met
Brissot, Condorcet, Santerre, and several eminent English radicals,
among them Sampson Perry. At this time it was proposed to send Dumouriez
secretly to London, to negotiate with Pitt, but this was abandoned.
Maret went, and he found Pitt gracious and pacific. Chauvelin, however,
advised the French government of this illicit negotiation, and Maret
was ordered to return. Such was the situation when Louis was executed.
That execution, as we have seen, might have been prevented had Pitt
provided the money; but it need not be supposed that, with Burke now on
the Treasury bench, the refusal is to be ascribed to anything more
than his inability to cope with his own majority, whom the King was
patronizing. So completely convinced of Pitt's pacific disposition were
Maret and his allies in France that the clandestine ambassador again
departed for London. But on arriving at Dover, he learned that Chauvelin
had been expelled, and at once returned to France.*
* See Louis Blanc's "Histoire," etc., tome viii.f p. 100,
for the principal authorities concerning this incident.--
Annual Register, 1793, ch. vi.; "Memoires tires des papiers
d'un homme d'Etat.," ii., p. 157; "Memoires de Dumouriez,"
t. iii., p. 384.
Paine now held more firmly than ever the first article of his faith as
to practical politics: the chief task of republicanism is to break
the Anglo-German sceptre. France is now committed to war; it must be
elevated to that European aim. Lord North and America reappear in Burke
and France. Meanwhile what is said of Britain in his "Rights of Man" was
now more terribly true of France--it had no Constitution. The Committee
on the Constitution had declared themselves ready to report early in the
winter, but the Mountaineers managed that the matter should be postponed
until after the King's trial. As an American who prized his citizenship,
Paine felt chagrined and compromised at being compelled to act as a
legislator and a judge because of his connection with a Convention
elected for the purpose of framing a legislative and judicial machinery.
He and Con-dorcet continued to add touches to this Constitution, the
Committee approving, and on the first opportunity it was reported again.
This was February 15, 1793. But, says the _Moniteur_, "the struggles
between the Girondins and the Mountain caused the examination and
discussion to be postponed." It was, however, distributed.
Gouverneur Morris, in a letter to Jefferson (March 7th), says this
Constitution "was read to the Convention, but I learnt the next
morning that a Council had been held on it overnight, by which it was
condemned." Here is evidence in our American archives of a meeting or
"Council" condemning the Constitution on the night of its submission.
It must have been secret, for it does not appear in French histories,
so far as I can discover. Durand de Maillane says that "the exclusion of
Robespierre and Couthon from this eminent task [framing a Constitution]
was a new matter for discontent and jealousy against the party of Petion
"--a leading Girondin,--and that Robespierre and his men desired "to
render their work useless."* No indication of this secret condemnation
of the Paine-Condorcet Constitution, by a conclave appeared on March
1st, when the document was again submitted. The Convention now set April
15th for its discussion, and the Mountaineers fixed that day for the
opening of their attack on the Girondins. The Mayor of Paris appeared
with a petition, adopted by the Communal Council of the thirty-five
sections of Paris, for the arrest of twenty-two members of the
Convention, as slanderers of Paris,--"presenting the Parisians to
Europe as men of blood,"--friends of Roland, accomplices of the traitor
Dumouriez, enemies of the clubs. The deputies named were: Brissot,
Guadet, Vergniaud, Gensonne, Grangeneuve, Buzot, Barbaroux, Salles,
Biroteau, Pontecoulant, Petion, Lanjuinais, Valaze, Hardy, Louvet,
Lehardy, Gor-sas, Abbe Fauchet, Lanthenas, Lasource, Valady, Chambon.
Of this list five were members of the Committee on the Constitution, and
two supplementary members.** Besides this, two of the arraigned--Louvet
and Lasource--had been especially active in pressing forward the
Constitution. The Mountaineers turned the discord they thus caused into
a reason for deferring discussion of the Constitution.
* "Histoire de la Convention Nationale," p. 50. Durand-
Maillane was "the silent member" of the Convention, but a
careful observer and well-informed witness. I follow him and
Louis Blanc in relating the fate of the Paine-Condorcet
Constitution.
** See vol. i., p. 357.
They declared also that important members were absent, levying troops,
and especially that Marat's trial had been ordered. The discussion on
the petition against the Girondins, and whether the Constitution should
be considered, proceeded together for two days, when the Mountaineers
were routed on both issues. The Convention returned the petition to the
Mayor, pronouncing it "calumnious," and it made the Constitution the
order of the day. Robespierre, according to Du-rand-Maillane, showed
much spite at this defeat. He adroitly secured a decision that the
preliminary "Declaration of Rights" should be discussed first, as there
could be endless talk on those generalities.*
* This Declaration, submitted by Condorcet, April 17th,
being largely the work of Paine, is here translated: The
end of all union of men in society being maintenance of
their natural rights, civil and political, these rights
should be the basis of the social pact: their recognition
and their declaration ought to precede the Constitution
which secures and guarantees them. 1. The natural rights,
civil and political, of men are liberty, equality, security,
property, social protection, and resistance to oppression.
2. Liberty consists in the power to do whatever is not
contrary to the rights of others; thus, the natural rights
of each man has no limits other than those which secure to
other members of society enjoyment of the same rights. 3.
The preservation of liberty depends on the sovereignty of
the Law, which is the expression of the general will.
Nothing unforbidden by law can be impeached, and none may be
constrained to do what it does not command. 4. Every man is
free to make known his thought and his opinions. 5. Freedom
of the press (and every other means of publishing one's
thoughts) cannot be prohibited, suspended, or limited. 6.
Every citizen shall be free in the exercise of his worship
[culte]. 7. Equality consists in the power of each to enjoy
the same rights. 8. The Law should be equal for all, whether
in recompense, punishment, or restraint. 9. All citizens are
admissible to all public positions, employments, and
functions. Free peoples can recognise no grounds of
preference except talents and virtues. 10. Security consists
in the protection accorded by society to each citizen for
the preservation of his person, property, and rights. 11.
None should be sued, accused, arrested, or detained, save in
cases determined by the law, and in accordance with forms
prescribed by it. Every other act against a citizen is
arbitrary and null. 12. Those who solicit, promote, sign,
execute or cause to be executed such arbitrary acts are
culpable, and should be punished. 13. Citizens against whom
the execution of such acts is attempted have the right of
resistance by force. Every citizen summoned or arrested by
the authority of law, and in the forms prescribed by it,
should instantly obey; he renders himself guilty by
resistance. 14. Every man being presumed innocent until
declared guilty, should his arrest be judged indispensable,
all rigor not necessary to secure his person should be
severely repressed by law. 15. None should be punished save
in virtue of a law established and promulgated previous to
the offence, and legally applied. 16. A law that should
punish offences committed before its existence would be an
arbitrary Act. Retroactive effect given to any law is a
crime. 17. Law should award only penalties strictly and
evidently necessary to the general security; they should be
proportioned to the offence and useful to society. 18. The
right of property consists in a man's being master in the
disposal, at his will, of his goods, capital, income, and
industry. 19. No kind of work, commerce, or culture can be
interdicted for any one; he may make, sell, and transport
every species of production. 20. Every man may engage his
services, and his time; but he cannot sell himself; his
person is not an alienable property. 21. No one may be
deprived of the least portion of his property without his
consent, unless because of public necessity, legally
determined, exacted openly, and under the condition of a
just indemnity in advance. 22. No tax shall be established
except for the general utility, and to relieve public needs.
All citizens have the right to co-operate, personally or by
their representatives, in the establishment of public
contributions. 23. Instruction is the need of all, and
society owes it equally to all its members. 24. Public
succors are a sacred debt of society, and it is for the law
to determine their extent and application. 25. The social
guarantee of the rights of man rests on the national
sovereignty. 26. This sovereignty is one, indivisible,
imprescriptible, and inalienable. 27. It resides essentially
in the whole people, and each citizen has an equal right to
co-operate in its exercise. 28. No partial assemblage of
citizens, and no individual may attribute to themselves
sovereignty, to exercise authority and fill any public
function, without a formal delegation by the law. 29. Social
security cannot exist where the limits of public
administration are not clearly determined by law, and where
the responsibility of all public functionaries is not
assured. 30. All citizens are bound to co-operate in this
guarantee, and to enforce the law when summoned in its name.
31. Men united in society should have legal means of
resisting oppression. In every free government the mode of
resisting different acts of oppression should be regulated
by the Constitution. 32. It is oppression when a law
violates the natural rights, civil and political, which it
should ensure. It is oppression when the law is violated by
public officials in its application to individual cases. It
is oppression when arbitrary acts violate the rights of
citizens against the terms of the law. 33. A people has
always the right to revise, reform, and change its
Constitution. One generation has no right to bind future
generations, and all heredity in offices is absurd and
tyrannical.
It now appears plain that Robespierre, Marat, and the Mountaineers
generally were resolved that there should be no new government The
difference between them and their opponents was fundamental: to them
the Revolution was an end, to the others a means. The Convention was a
purely revolutionary body. It had arbitrarily absorbed all legislative
and judicial functions, exercising them without responsibility to any
code or constitution. For instance, in State Trials French law required
three fourths of the voices for condemnation; had the rule been followed
Louis XVI. would not have perished. Lanjuinais had pressed the point,
and it was answered that the sentence on Louis was political, for the
interest of the State; _salus populi suprema lex_. This implied that
the Convention, turning aside from its appointed functions, had, in
anticipation of the judicial forms it meant to establish, constituted
itself into a Vigilance Committee to save the State in an emergency. But
it never turned back again to its proper work. Now when the Constitution
was framed, every possible obstruction was placed in the way of its
adoption, which would have relegated most of the Mountaineers to private
life.
Robespierre and Marat were in luck. The Paine-Condorcet Constitution
omitted all mention of a Deity. Here was the immemorial and infallible
recipe for discord, of which Robespierre made the most He took the
"Supreme Being" under his protection; he also took morality under his
protection, insisting that the Paine-Condorcet Constitution gave liberty
even to illicit traffic. While these discussions were going on Marat
gained his triumphant acquittal from the charges made against him by the
Girondins. This damaging blow further demoralized the majority which was
eager for the Constitution. By violence, by appeals against atheism,
by all crafty tactics, the Mountaineers secured recommitment of the
Constitution. To the Committee were added Herault de Sechelles, Ramel,
Mathieu, Couthon, Saint-Just,--all from the Committee of Public Safety.
The Constitution as committed was the most republican document of the
kind ever drafted, as remade it was a revolutionary instrument; but its
preamble read: "In the presence and under the guidance (_auspices_) of
the Supreme Being, the French People declare," etc.
God was in the Constitution; but when it was reported (June 10th)
the Mountaineers had their opponents _en route_ for the scaffold. The
arraignment of the twenty-two, declared by the Convention "calumnious"
six weeks before, was approved on June 2d. It was therefore easy to pass
such a constitution as the victors desired. Some had suggested, during
the theological debate, that "many crimes had been sanctioned by this
King of kings,"--no doubt with emphasis on the discredited royal
name. Robespierre identified his "Supreme Being" with nature, of whose
ferocities the poor Girondins soon had tragical evidence.*
* "Les rois, les aristocrates, les tyrants qu'ils soient,
sont des esclaves revoltas contre le souverain de la terre,
qui est le genre humain, et contre le legislateur de
l'univers, qui est la nature."--Robespierre's final article
of "Rights," adopted by the Jacobins, April 21,1793. Should
not slaves revolt?
The Constitution was adopted by the Convention on June 25th; it was
ratified by the Communes August 10th. When it was proposed to organize a
government under it, and dissolve the Convention, Robespierre remarked:
_That sounds like a suggestion of Pitt!_ Thereupon the Constitution
was suspended until universal peace, and the Revolution superseded the
Republic as end and aim of France.*
* "I observed in the french revolutions that they always
proceeded by stages, and made each stage a stepping stone to
another. The Convention, to amuse the people, voted a
constitution, and then voted to suspend the practical
establishment of it till after the war, and in the meantime
to carry on a revolutionary government. When Robespierre
fell they proposed bringing forward the suspended
Constitution, and apparently for this purpose appointed a
committee to frame what they called organic laws, and these
organic laws turned out to be a new Constitution (the
Directory Constitution which was in general a good one).
When Bonaparte overthrew this Constitution he got himself
appointed first Consul for ten years, then for life, and now
Emperor with an hereditary succession."--Paine to Jefferson.
MS. (Dec. 27, 1804). The Paine-Condorcet Constitution is
printed in OEuvres Completes de Condorcet, vol. xviii. That
which superseded it may be read (the Declaration of Rights
omitted) in the "Constitutional History of France. By Henry
C. Lockwood." (New York, 1890). It is, inter alia, a
sufficient reason for describing the latter as
revolutionary, that it provides that a Convention, elected
by a majority of the departments, and a tenth part of the
primaries, to revise or alter the Constitution, shall be
"formed in like manner as the legislatures, and unite in
itself the highest power." In other words, instead of being
limited to constitutional revision, may exercise all
legislative and other functions, just as the existing
Convention was doing.
Some have ascribed to Robespierre a phrase he borrowed, on one occasion,
from Voltaire, _Si Dieu n' existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer_.
Robespierre's originality was that he did invent a god, made in his own
image, and to that idol offered human sacrifices,--beginning with his
own humanity. That he was genuinely superstitious is suggested by the
plausibility with which his enemies connected him with the "prophetess,"
Catharine Theot, who pronounced him the reincarnate "Word of God,"
Certain it is that he revived the old forces of fanaticism, and largely
by their aid crushed the Girondins, who were rationalists. Condorcet had
said that in preparing a Constitution for France they had not consulted
Numa's nymph or the pigeon of Mahomet; they had found human reason
sufficient. Corruption of best is worst. In the proportion that a humane
deity would be a potent sanction for righteous laws, an inhuman deity is
the sanction of inhuman laws. He who summoned a nature-god to the French
Convention let loose the scourge on France. Nature inflicts on
mankind, every day, a hundred-fold the agonies of the Reign of Terror.
Robespierre had projected into nature a sentimental conception of his
own, but he had no power to master the force he had evoked. That had to
take the shape of the nature-gods of all time, and straightway dragged
the Convention down to the savage plane where discussion becomes an
exchange of thunder-stones. Such relapses are not very difficult to
effect in revolutionary times. By killing off sceptical variations, and
cultivating conformity, a cerebral evolution proceeded for ages by which
kind-hearted people were led to worship jealous and cruel gods, who,
should they appear in human form, would be dealt with as criminals.
Unfortunately, however, the nature-god does not so appear; it is
represented in euphemisms, while at the same time it coerces the social
and human standard. Since the nature-god punishes hereditarily, kills
every man at last, and so tortures millions that the suggestion of hell
seems only too probable to those sufferers, a political system formed
under the legitimacy of such a superstition must subordinate crimes
to sins, regard atheism as worse than theft, acknowledge the arbitrary
principle, and confuse retaliation with justice. From the time that
the shekinah of the nature-god settled on the Mountain, offences
were measured, not by their injury to man, but as insults to the
Mountain-god, or to his anointed. In the mysterious counsels of the
Committee of Public Safety the rewards are as little harmonious with the
human standard as in the ages when sabbath-breaking and murder met the
same doom. Under the paralyzing splendor of a divine authority, any
such considerations as the suffering or death of men become petty. The
average Mountaineer was unable to imagine that those who tried to save
Louis had other than royalist motives. In this Armageddon the Girondins
were far above their opponents in humanity and intelligence, but the
conditions did not admit of an entire adherence to their honorable
weapons of argument and eloquence. They too often used deadly threats,
without meaning them; the Mountaineers, who did mean them, took such
phrases seriously, and believed the struggle to be one of life and
death. Such phenomena of bloodshed, connected with absurdly inadequate
causes, are known in history only where gods mingle in the fray. Reign
of Terror? What is the ancient reign of the god of battles, jealous,
angry every day, with everlasting tortures of fire prepared for the
unorthodox, however upright, even more than for the immoral? In France
too it was a suspicion of unorthodoxy in the revolutionary creed that
plunged most of the sufferers into the lake of fire and brimstone.
From the time of Paine's speeches on the King's fate he was
conscious that Marat's evil eye was on him. The American's inflexible
republicanism had inspired the vigilance of the powerful journals of
Brissot and Bonneville, which barred the way to any dictatorship. Paine
was even propagating a doctrine against presidency, thus marring the
example of the United States, on which ambitious Frenchmen, from Marat
to the Napoleons, have depended for their stepping-stone to despotism.
Marat could not have any doubt of Paine's devotion to the Republic,
but knew well his weariness of the Revolution. In the simplicity of his
republican faith Paine had made a great point of the near adoption
of the Constitution, and dissolution of the Convention in five or
six months, little dreaming that the Mountaineers were concentrating
themselves on the aim of becoming masters of the existing Convention
and then rendering it permanent. Marat regarded Paine's influence as
dangerous to revolutionary government, and, as he afterwards admitted,
desired to crush him. The proposed victim had several vulnerable points:
he had been intimate with Gouverneur Morris, whose hostility to France
was known; he had been intimate with Dumouriez, declared a traitor;
and he had no connection with any of the Clubs, in which so many
found asylum. He might have joined one of them had he known the French
language, and perhaps it would have been prudent to unite himself with
the "Cordeliers," in whose _esprit de corps_ some of his friends found
refuge.
However, the time of intimidation did not come for two months after the
King's death, and Paine was busy with Condorcet on the task assigned
them, of preparing an Address to the People of England concerning the
war of their government against France. This work, if ever completed,
does not appear to have been published. It was entrusted (February 1st)
to Barrere, Paine, Condorcet, and M. Faber. As Frederic Masson, the
learned librarian and historian of the Office of Foreign Affairs, has
found some trace of its being assigned to Paine and Condorcet, it may be
that further research will bring to light the Address. It could hardly
have been completed before the warfare broke out between the Mountain
and the Girondins, when anything emanating from Condorcet and Paine
would have been delayed, if not suppressed. There are one or two brief
essays in Condorcet's works--notably "The French Republic to Free
Men"--which suggest collaboration with Paine, and may be fragments of
their Address.*
* "OEuvres Completes de Condorcet," Paris, 1804, t. xvi., p.
16: "La Republique Francoise aux homines libres." In 1794,
when Paine was in prison, a pamphlet was issued by the
revolutionary government, entitled: "An Answer to the
Declaration of the King of England, respecting his Motives
for Carrying on the Present War, and his Conduct towards
France." This anonymous pamphlet, which is in English,
replies to the royal proclamation of October 29th, and bears
evidence of being written while the English still occupied
Toulon or early in November, 1793. There are passages in it
that suggest the hand of Paine, along with others which he
could not have written. It is possible that some composition
of his, in pursuance of the task assigned him and Condorcet,
was utilized by the Committee of Public Safety in its answer
to George III.
At this time the long friendship between Paine and Condorcet, and
the Marchioness too, had become very intimate. The two men had acted
together on the King's trial at every step, and their speeches on
bringing Louis to trial suggest previous consultations between them.
Early in April Paine was made aware of Marat's hostility to him. General
Thomas Ward reported to him a conversation in which Marat had said:
"Frenchmen are mad to allow foreigners to live among them. They should
cut off their ears, let them bleed a few days, and then cut off their
heads." "But you yourself are a foreigner," Ward had replied, in
allusion to Marat's Swiss birth.* The answer is not reported. At length
a tragical incident occurred, just before the trial of Marat (April
13th), which brought Paine face to face with this enemy. A wealthy young
Englishman, named Johnson, with whom Paine had been intimate in London,
had followed him to Paris, where he lived in the same house with his
friend. His love of Paine amounted to worship. Having heard of Marat's
intention to have Paine's life taken, such was the young enthusiast's
despair, and so terrible the wreck of his republican dreams, that he
resolved on suicide. He made a will bequeathing his property to Paine,
and stabbed himself. Fortunately he was saved by some one who entered
just as he was about to give himself the third blow. It may have been
Paine himself who then saved his friend's life; at any rate, he did so
eventually.
* "Englishmen in the French Revolution." By John G. Alger.
London, 1889, p. 176. (A book of many blunders.)
The decree for Marat's trial was made amid galleries crowded with his
adherents, male and female ("Dames de la Fraternite"), who hurled cries
of wrath on every one who said a word against him. All were armed,
the women ostentatious of their poignards. The trial before the
Revolutionary Tribunal was already going in Marat's favor, when it was
determined by the Girondins to bring forward this affair of Johnson.
Paine was not, apparently, a party to this move, though he had enjoined
no secrecy in telling his friend Brissot of the incident, which occurred
before Marat was accused. On April 16th there appeared in Bris-sot's
journal _Le Patriote Francais_, the following paragraph:
"A sad incident has occurred to apprise the anarchists of the mournful
fruits of their frightful teaching. An Englishman, whose name I reserve,
had abjured his country because of his detestation of kings; he came to
France hoping to find there liberty; he saw only its mask on the hideous
visage of anarchy. Heart-broken by this spectacle, he determined on
self-destruction. Before dying, he wrote the following words, which we
have read, as written by his own trembling hand, on a paper which is in
the possession of a distinguished foreigner:--'I had come to France to
enjoy Liberty, but Marat has assassinated it. Anarchy is even more
cruel than despotism. I am unable to endure this grievous sight, of the
triumph of imbecility and inhumanity over talent and virtue.'"
The acting editor of _Le Patriote Francais_, Girey-Dupre, was summoned
before the Tribunal, where Marat was on trial, and testified that the
note published had been handed to him by Brissot, who assured him that
it was from the original, in the hands of Thomas Paine. Paine deposed
that he had been unacquainted with Marat before the Convention
assembled; that he had not supposed Johnson's note to have any
connection with the accusations against Marat.
President.--Did you give a copy of the note to Brissot?
Paine.--I showed him the original.
President.--Did you send it to him as it is printed?
Paine.--Brissot could only have written this note after what I read to
him, and told him. I would observe to the tribunal that Johnson gave
himself two blows with the knife after he had understood that Marat
would denounce him.
Marat.--Not because I would denounce the youth who stabbed himself, but
because I wish to denounce Thomas Paine.*
Paine (continuing).--Johnson had for some time suffered mental anguish.
As for Marat, I never spoke to him but once. In the lobby of the
Convention he said to me that the English people are free and happy; I
replied, they groan under a double despotism.**
* It would appear that Paine had not been informed until
Marat declared it, and was confirmed by the testimony of
Choppin, that the attempted suicide was on his account.
** Moniteur, April 24,1793.
No doubt it had been resolved to keep secret the fact that young Johnson
was still alive. The moment was critical; a discovery that Brissot
had written or printed "avant de mourir" of one still alive might have
precipitated matters.
It came out in the trial that Marat, addressing a club ("Friends of
Liberty and Equality"), had asked them to register a vow to recall from
the Convention "all of those faithless members who had betrayed
their duties in trying to save a tyrant's life," such deputies being
"traitors, royalists, or fools."
Meanwhile the Constitution was undergoing discussion in the Convention,
and to that Paine now gave his entire attention. On April 20th the
Convention, about midnight, when the Moderates had retired and the
Mountaineers found themselves masters of the field, voted to entertain
the petition of the Parisian sections against the Girondins. Paine saw
the star the Republic sinking. On "April 20th, 2d year of the Republic,"
he wrote as follows to Jefferson:
"My dear Friend,--The gentleman (Dr. Romer) to whom I entrust this
letter is an intimate acquaintance of Lavater; but I have not had the
opportunity of seeing him, as he had sett off for Havre prior to my
writing this letter, which I forward to him under cover from one of his
friends, who is also an acquaintance of mine.
"We are now in an extraordinary crisis, and it is not altogether without
some considerable faults here. Dumouriez, partly from having no fixed
principles of his own, and partly from the continual persecution of the
Jacobins, who act without either prudence or morality, has gone off
to the Enemy, and taken a considerable part of the Army with him. The
expedition to Holland has totally failed and all Brabant is again in the
hands of the Austrians.
"You may suppose the consternation which such a sudden reverse of
fortune has occasioned, but it has been without commotion. Dumouriez
threatened to be in Paris in three weeks. It is now three weeks ago; he
is still on the frontier near to Mons with the Enemy, who do not
make any progress. Dumouriez has proposed to re-establish the former
Constitution, in which plan the Austrians act with him. But if France
and the National Convention act prudently this project will not succeed.
In the first place there is a popular disposition against it, and there
is force sufficient to prevent it. In the next place, a great deal is to
be taken into the calculation with respect to the Enemy. There are now
so many powers accidentally jumbled together as to render it exceedingly
difficult to them to agree upon any common object.
"The first object, that of restoring the old Monarchy, is evidently
given up by the proposal to re-establish the late Constitution. The
object of England and Prussia was to preserve Holland, and the object
of Austria was to recover Brabant; while those separate objects lasted,
each party having one, the Confederation could hold together, each
helping the other; but after this I see not how a common object is to
be formed. To all this is to be added the probable disputes about
opportunity, the expense, and the projects of reimbursements. The Enemy
has once adventured into France, and they had the permission or the
good fortune to get back again. On every military calculation it is a
hazardous adventure, and armies are not much disposed to try a second
time the ground upon which they have been defeated.
"Had this revolution been conducted consistently with its principles,
there was once a good prospect of extending liberty through the greatest
part of Europe; but I now relinquish that hope. Should the Enemy by
venturing into France put themselves again in a condition of being
captured, the hope will revive; but this is a risk that I do not wish to
see tried, lest it should fail.
"As the prospect of a general freedom is now much shortened, I begin
to contemplate returning home. I shall await the event of the proposed
Constitution, and then take my final leave of Europe. I have not written
to the President, as I have nothing to communicate more than in this
letter. Please to present to him my affection and compliments,
and remember me among the circle of my friends. Your sincere and
affectionate friend,
"Thomas Paine.
"P. S. I just now received a letter from General Lewis Morris, who tells
me that the house and Barn on my farm at N. Rochelle are burnt down. I
assure you I shall not bring money enough to build another."
Four days after this letter was written Marat, triumphant, was crowned
with oak leaves. Fou-frede in his speech (April 16th) had said: "Marat
has formally demanded dictatorship." This was the mob's reply: _Bos
locutus est_.
With Danton, Paine had been on friendly terms, though he described as
"rose water" the author's pleadings against the guillotine. On May 6th,
Paine wrote to Danton a letter brought to light by Taine, who says:
"Compared with the speeches and writings of the time, it produces the
strangest effect by its practical good sense."* Dr. Robinet also finds
here evidence of "a lucid and wise intellect."**
* "La Revolution," ii., pp. 382, 413, 414.
** "Danton Emigre," p. 177.
"Paris, May 6th, and year of the Republic (1793).
"Citoyen Danton:
"As you read English, I write this letter to you without parsing it
through the hands of a translator. I am exceedingly disturbed at the
distractions, jealousies, discontents and uneasiness that reign among
us, and which, if they continue, will bring ruin and disgrace on the
Republic. When I left America in the year 1787, it was my intention to
return the year following, but the French Revolution, and the prospect
it afforded of extending the principles of liberty and fraternity
through the greater part of Europe, have induced me to prolong my stay
upwards of six years. |I now despair of seeing the great object of
European liberty accomplished, and my despair arises not from, the
combined foreign powers, not from the intrigues of aristocracy and
priestcraft, but from the tumultuous misconduct with which the internal
affairs of the present revolution is conducted.
"All that now can be hoped for is limited to France only, and I agree
with your motion of not interfering in the government of any foreign
country, nor permitting any foreign country to interfere in the
government of France. This decree was necessary as a preliminary toward
terminating the war. But while these internal contentions continue,
while the hope remains to the enemy of seeing the Republic fall to
pieces, while not only the representatives of the departments but
representation itself is publicly insulted, as it has lately been and
now is by the people of Paris, or at least by the tribunes, the enemy
will be encouraged to hang about the frontiers and await the issue of
circumstances.
"I observe that the confederated powers have not yet recognised
Monsieur, or D'Artois, as regent, nor made any proclamation in favour of
any of the Bourbons; but this negative conduct admits of two different
conclusions. The one is that of abandoning the Bourbons and the war
together; the other is that of changing the object of the war and
substituting a partition scheme in the place of their first object, as
they have done by Poland. If this should be their object, the internal
contentions that now rage will favour that object far more than it
favoured their former object. The danger every day increases of a
rupture between Paris and the departments. The departments did not send
their deputies to Paris to be insulted, and every insult shown to them
is an insult to the departments that elected and sent them. I see but
one effectual plan to prevent this rupture taking place, and that is to
fix the residence of the Convention, and of the future assemblies, at a
distance from Paris.
"I saw, during the American Revolution, the exceeding inconvenience
that arose by having the government of Congress within the limits of
any Municipal Jurisdiction. Congress first resided in Philadelphia, and
after a residence of four years it found it necessary to leave it. It
then adjourned to the State of Jersey. It afterwards removed to
New York; it again removed from New York to Philadelphia, and after
experiencing in every one of these places the great inconvenience of
a government, it formed the project of building a Town, not within
the limits of any municipal jurisdiction, for the future residence of
Congress. In any one of the places where Congress resided, the municipal
authority privately or openly opposed itself to the authority of
Congress, and the people of each of those places expected more attention
from Congress than their equal share with the other States amounted to.
The same thing now takes place in France, but in a far greater excess.
"I see also another embarrassing circumstance arising in Paris of which
we have had full experience in America. I mean that of fixing the price
of provisions. But if this measure is to be attempted it ought to
be done by the Municipality. The Convention has nothing to do with
regulations of this kind; neither can they be carried into practice. The
people of Paris may say they will not give more than a certain price
for provisions, but as they cannot compel the country people to bring
provisions to market the consequence will be directly contrary to their
expectations, and they will find clearness and famine instead of plenty
and cheapness. They may force the price down upon the stock in hand, but
after that the market will be empty.
"I will give you an example. In Philadelphia we undertook, among other
regulations of this kind, to regulate the price of Salt; the consequence
was that no Salt was brought to market, and the price rose to thirty-six
shillings sterling per Bushel. The price before the war was only one
shilling and sixpence per Bushel; and we regulated the price of flour
(farine) till there was none in the market, and the people were glad to
procure it at any price.
"There is also a circumstance to be taken into the account which is not
much attended to. The assignats are not of the same value they were a
year ago, and as the quantity increases the value of them will diminish.
This gives the appearance of things being dear when they are not so in
fact, for in the same proportion that any kind of money falls in
value articles rise in price. If it were not for this the quantity of
assignats would be too great to be circulated. Paper money in America
fell so much in value from this excessive quantity of it, that in the
year 1781 I gave three hundred paper dollars for one pair of worsted
stockings. What I write you upon this subject is experience, and not
merely opinion.
"I have no personal interest in any of these matters, nor in any party
disputes. I attend only to general principles.
"As soon as a constitution shall be established I shall return to
America; and be the future prosperity of France ever so great, I shall
enjoy no other part of it than the happiness of knowing it. In the mean
time I am distressed to see matters so badly conducted, and so little
attention paid to moral principles. It is these things that injure the
character of the Revolution and discourage the progress of liberty all
over the world.
"When I began this letter I did not intend making it so lengthy, but
since I have gone thus far I will fill up the remainder of the sheet
with such matters as occur to me.
"There ought to be some regulation with respect to the spirit of
denunciation that now prevails. If every individual is to indulge his
private malignancy or his private ambition, to denounce at random and
without any kind of proof, all confidence will be undermined and all
authority be destroyed. Calumny is a species of Treachery that ought to
be punished as well as any other kind of Treachery. It is a private vice
productive of public evils; because it is possible to irritate men into
disaffection by continual calumny who never intended to be disaffected.
It is therefore, equally as necessary to guard against the evils
of unfounded or malignant suspicion as against the evils of blind
confidence. It is equally as necessary to protect the characters of
public officers from calumny as it is to punish them for treachery or
misconduct. For my own part I shall hold it a matter of doubt, until
better evidence arises than is known at present, whether Dumouriez has
been a traitor from policy or from resentment. There was certainly a
time when he acted well, but it is not every man whose mind is strong
enough to bear up against ingratitude, and I think he experienced a
great deal of this before he revolted. Calumny becomes harmless and
defeats itself when it attempts to act upon too large a scale. Thus the
denunciation of the Sections [of Paris] against the twenty-two deputies
falls to the ground. The departments that elected them are better judges
of their moral and political characters than those who have denounced
them. This denunciation will injure Paris in the opinion of the
departments because it has the appearance of dictating to them what sort
of deputies they shall elect. Most of the acquaintances that I have in
the convention are among those who are in that list, and I know there
are not better men nor better patriots than what they are.
"I have written a letter to Marat of the same date as this but not on
the same subject. He may show it to you if he chuse.
"Votre Ami,
"Thomas Paine.
"Citoyen Danton."
It is to be hoped that Paine's letter to Marat may be discovered in
France; it is shown by the Cob-bett papers, printed in the Appendix,
that he kept a copy, which there is reason to fear perished with
General Bonneville's library in St. Louis. Whatever may be the letter's
contents, there is no indication that thereafter Marat troubled Paine.
Possibly Danton and Marat compared their letters, and the latter got it
into his head that hostility to this American, anxious only to cross the
ocean, could be of no advantage to him. Or perhaps he remembered that if
a hue and cry were raised against "foreigners" it could not stop short
of his own leaf-crowned Neufchatel head. He had shown some sensitiveness
about that at his trial. Samson-Pegnet had testified that, at
conversations in Paine's house, Marat had been reported as saying that
it was necessary to massacre all the foreigners, especially the English.
This Marat pronounced an "atrocious calumny, a device of the statesmen
[his epithet for Girondins] to render me odious." Whatever his motives,
there is reason to believe that Marat no longer included Paine in his
proscribed list. Had it been otherwise a fair opportunity of striking
down Paine presented itself on the occasion, already alluded to, when
Paine gave his testimony in favor of General Miranda. Miranda was tried
before the Revolutionary Tribunal on May 12th, and three days following.
He had served under Dumouriez, was defeated, and was suspected of
connivance with his treacherous commander. Paine was known to have been
friendly with Dumouriez, and his testimony in favor of Miranda might
naturally have been used against both men. Miranda was, however,
acquitted, and that did not make Marat better disposed towards that
adventurer's friends, all Girondins, or, like Paine, who belonged to no
party, hostile to Jacobinism. Yet when, on June 2d, the doomed Girondins
were arrested, there were surprising exceptions: Paine and his literary
collaborateur, Condorcet. Moreover, though the translator of Paine's
works, Lanthenas, was among the proscribed, his name was erased on
Marat's motion.
On June 7th Robespierre demanded a more stringent law against
foreigners, and one was soon after passed ordering their imprisonment.
It was understood that this could not apply to the two foreigners in the
Convention--Paine and Anacharsis Clootz,--though it was regarded as a
kind of warning to them. I have seen it stated, but without authority,
that Paine had been admonished by Danton to stay away from the
Convention on June 2d, and from that day there could not be the
slightest utility in his attendance. The Mountaineers had it all their
own way. For simply criticising the Constitution they brought forward
in place of that of the first committee, Condorcet had to fly from
prosecution. Others also fled, among them Brissot and Duchatel. What
with the arrestations and flights Paine found himself, in June, almost
alone. In the Convention he was sometimes the solitary figure left on
the Plain, where but now sat the brilliant statesmen of France. They,
his beloved friends, have started in procession towards the guillotine,
for even flight must end there; daily others are pressed into their
ranks; his own summons, he feels, is only a question of a few weeks
or days. How Paine loved those men--Brissot, Condorcet, Lasource,
Ducha-tel, Vergniaud, Gensonne! Never was man more devoted to his
intellectual comrades. Even across a century one may realize what it
meant to him, that march of some of his best friends to the scaffold,
while others were hunted through France, and the agony of their
families, most of whom he well knew.
Alas, even this is not the worst! For what were the personal fate of
himself or any compared with the fearful fact that the harvest is past
and the republic not saved! Thus had ended all his labors, and his
visions of the Commonwealth of Man. The time had come when many besides
poor Johnson sought peace in annihilation. Paine, heartbroken,
sought oblivion in brandy. Recourse to such anaesthetic, of which any
affectionate man might fairly avail himself under such incredible agony
as the ruin of his hopes and the approaching murder of his dearest
friends, was hitherto unknown in Paine's life. He drank freely, as was
the custom of his time; but with the exception of the evidence of an
enemy at his trial in England, that he once saw him under the influence
of wine after a dinner party (1792), which he admitted was "unusual," no
intimation of excess is discoverable in any contemporary record of Paine
until this his fifty-seventh year. He afterwards told his friend Rickman
that, "borne down by public and private affliction, he had been driven
to excesses in Paris"; and, as it was about this time that Gouverneur
Morris and Colonel Bosville, who had reasons for disparaging Paine,
reported stories of his drunkenness (growing ever since), we may assign
the excesses mainly to June. It will be seen by comparison of the dates
of events and documents presently mentioned that Paine could not have
remained long in this pardonable refuge of mental misery. Charlotte
Corday's poignard cut a rift in the black cloud. After that tremendous
July 13th there is positive evidence not only of sobriety, but of life
and work on Paine's part that make the year memorable.
Marat dead, hope springs up for the arrested Girondins. They are not
yet in prison, but under "arrestation in their homes"; death seemed
inevitable while Marat lived, but Charlotte Corday has summoned a
new leader. Why may Paine's imperilled comrades not come forth again?
Certainly they will if the new chieftain is Danton, who under his
radical rage hides a heart. Or if Marat's mantle falls on Robespierre,
would not that scholarly lawyer, who would have abolished capital
punishment, reverse Marat's cruel decrees? Robespierre had agreed to the
new Constitution (reported by Paine's friend, Herault de Sechelles) and
when even that dubious instrument returns with the popular sanction, all
may be well. The Convention, which is doing everything except what it
was elected to do, will then dissolve, and the happy Republic remember
it only as a nightmare. So Paine takes heart again, abandons the bowl of
forgetfulness, and becomes a republican Socrates instructing disciples
in an old French garden.
CHAPTER IV. A GARDEN IN THE FAUBOURG ST. DENIS
Sir George Trevelyan has written a pregnant passage, reminding the world
of the moral burden which radicals in England had to bear a hundred
years ago.
"When to speak or write one's mind on politics is to obtain the
reputation, and render one's self liable to the punishment of a
criminal, social discredit, with all its attendant moral dangers,
soon attaches itself to the more humble opponents of a ministry. To be
outside the law as a publisher or a pamphleteer is only less trying to
conscience and conduct than to be outside the law as a smuggler or a
poacher; and those who, ninety years ago, placed themselves within the
grasp of the penal statutes as they were administered in England and
barbarously perverted in Scotland were certain to be very bold men,
and pretty sure to be unconventional up to the uttermost verge of
respectability. As an Italian Liberal was sometimes half a bravo, and
a Spanish patriot often more than half a brigand, so a British Radical
under George the Third had generally, it must be confessed, a dash of
the Bohemian. Such, in a more or less mitigated form, were Paine and
Cob-bett, Hunt, Hone, and Holcroft; while the same causes in part
account for the elfish vagaries of Shelley and the grim improprieties of
Godwin. But when we recollect how these, and the like of these, gave
up every hope of worldly prosperity, and set their life and liberty in
continual hazard for the sake of that personal and political freedom
which we now exercise as unconsciously as we breathe the air, it would
be too exacting to require that each and all of them should have lived
as decorously as Perceval, and died as solvent as Bishop Tomline."*
To this right verdict it may be added that, even at the earlier period
when it was most applicable, the radicals could only produce one rival
in profligacy (John Wilkes) to their aristocratic oppressors. It may
also be noted as a species of homage that the slightest failings of
eminent reformers become historic. The vices of Burke and Fox are
forgotten. Who remembers that the younger Pitt was brought to an
early grave by the bottle? But every fault of those who resisted his
oppression is placed under a solar microscope. Although, as Sir George
affirms, the oppressors largely caused the faults, this homage to the
higher moral standard of the reformers may be accepted.**
* "Early History of Charles James Fox," American ed., p. 44a
** The following document was found among the papers of Mr.
John Han, originally of Leicester, England, and has been
forwarded to me by his descendant, J. Dutton Steele, Jr., of
Philadelphia.
"A Copy of a Letter from the chairman of a meeting of the
Gentry and Qergy at Atherstone, written in consequence of an
envious schoolmaster and two or three others who informed
the meeting that the Excise Officers of Polesworth were
employed in distributing the Rights of Man; but which was
Very false.
"Sir: I should think it unnecessary to inform you, that the
purport of his Majesty's proclamation in the Month of May
last, and the numerous meetings which are daily taking place
both in Town and Country, are for the avowed purpose of
suppressing treasonable and seditious writings amongst which
Mr. Payne's Rights of Man ranks most conspicuous. Were I not
informed you have taken some pains in spreading that
publication, I write to say If you don't from this time
adopt a different kind of conduct you will be taken notice
of in such way as may prove very disagreeable.
"The Eyes of the Country are upon you and you will do well
in future to shew yourself faithful to the Master who
employs you.
"I remain,
"Your Hble servant,
"(Signed) Jos. Boultbee. Baxterby, 15th Deer., '92.
"N. B. The letter was written the next morning after the
Meeting where most of the Loyal souls got drunk to an
uncommon degree. They drank his Majesty's health so often
the reckoning amounted to 7s. 6d. each. One of the informers
threw down a shilling and ran away."
It was, indeed, a hard time for reformers in England. Among them were
many refined gentlemen who felt that it was no country for a thinker and
scholar to live in. Among the pathetic pictures of the time was that of
the twelve scholars, headed by Coleridge and Southey, and twelve ladies,
who found the atmosphere of England too impure for any but slaves
to breathe, and proposed to seek in America some retreat where their
pastoral "pantisocrasy" might be realized. Lack of funds prevented
the fulfilment of this dream, but that it should have been an object of
concert and endeavor, in that refined circle at Bristol, is a memorable
sign of that dreadful time. In the absence of means to form such
communities, preserving the culture and charm of a society evolved out
of barbarism, apart from the walls of a remaining political barbarism
threatening it with their ruins, some scholars were compelled, like
Coleridge, to rejoin the feudalists, and help them to buttress the
crumbling castle. They secured themselves from the social deterioration
of living on wild "honey-dew" in a wilderness, at cost of wearing
intellectual masks. Some fled to America, like Cobbett. But others fixed
their abode in Paris, where radicalism was fashionable and invested with
the charm of the _salon_ and the theatre.
Before the declaration of war Paine had been on friendly terms with some
eminent Englishmen in Paris: he dined every week with Lord Lauderdale,
Dr. John Moore, an author, and others in some restaurant. After most of
these had followed Lord Gower to England he had to be more guarded.
A British agent, Major Semple, approached him under the name of Major
Lisle. He professed to be an Irish patriot, wore the green cockade, and
desired introduction to the Minister of War. Paine fortunately knew too
many Irishmen to fall into this snare.* But General Miranda, as we have
seen, fared better. Paine was, indeed, so overrun with visitors and
adventurers that he appropriated two mornings of each week at the
Philadelphia House for levees. These, however, became insufficient to
stem the constant stream of visitors, including spies and lion-hunters,
so that he had little time for consultation with the men and women
whose co-operation he needed in public affairs. He therefore leased an
out-of-the-way house, reserving knowledge of it for particular friends,
while still retaining his address at the Philadelphia Hotel, where the
levees were continued.
* Rickman, p. 129.
The irony of fate had brought an old mansion of Madame de Pompadour
to become the residence of Thomas Paine and his half dozen English
disciples. It was then, and still is, No. 63 Faubourg St. Denis. Here,
where a King's mistress held her merry fetes, and issued the decrees
of her reign--sometimes of terror,--the little band of English
humanitarians read and conversed, and sported in the garden. In a little
essay on "Forgetfulness," addressed to his friend, Lady Smith, Paine
described these lodgings.
"They were the most agreeable, for situation, of any I ever had in
Paris, except that they were too remote from the Convention, of which I
was then a member. But this was recompensed by their being also remote
from the alarms and confusion into which the interior of Paris was then
often thrown. The news of those things used to arrive to us, as if we
were in a state of tranquillity in the country. The house, which was
enclosed by a wall and gateway from the street, was a good deal like an
old mansion farm-house, and the court-yard was like a farm yard, stocked
with fowls,--ducks, turkies, and geese; which, for amusement, we used
to feed out of the parlor window on the ground floor. There were some
hutches for rabbits, and a sty with two pigs. Beyond was a garden of
more than an acre of ground, well laid out, and stocked with excellent
fruit trees. The orange, apricot, and greengage plum were the best I
ever tasted; and it is the only place where I saw the wild cucumber. The
place had formerly been occupied by some curious person.
"My apartments consisted of three rooms; the first for wood, water,
etc.; the next was the bedroom; and beyond it the sitting room, which
looked into the garden through a glass door; and on the outside there
was a small landing place railed in, and a flight of narrow stairs
almost hidden by the vines that grew over it, by which I could descend
into the garden without going down stairs through the house.... I used
to find some relief by walking alone in the garden, after dark, and
cursing with hearty good will the authors of that terrible system that
had turned the character of the Revolution I had been proud to defend. I
went but little to the Convention, and then only to make my appearance,
because I found it impossible to join in their tremendous decrees,
and useless and dangerous to oppose them. My having voted and spoken
extensively, more so than any other member, against the execution of
the king, had already fixed a mark upon me; neither dared any of my
associates in the Convention to translate and speak in French for me
anything I might have dared to have written.... Pen and ink were then of
no use to me; no good could be done by writing, and no printer dared to
print; and whatever I might have written, for my private amusement,
as anecdotes of the times, would have been continually exposed to be
examined, and tortured into any meaning that the rage of party might fix
upon it. And as to softer subjects, my heart was in distress at the fate
of my friends, and my harp hung upon the weeping willows.
"As it was summer, we spent most of our time in the garden, and passed
it away in those childish amusements that serve to keep reflection from
the mind,--such as marbles, Scotch hops, battledores, etc., at which we
were all pretty expert. In this retired manner we remained about six or
seven weeks, and our landlord went every evening into the city to bring
us the news of the day and the evening journal."
The "we" included young Johnson, Mr. and Mrs. Christie, Mr. Choppin,
probably Mr. Shapworth, an American, and M. Laborde, a scientific
friend of Paine. These appear to have entered with Paine into
co-operative housekeeping, though taking their chief meals at the
restaurants. In the evenings they were joined by others,--the Brissots
(before the arrest), Nicholas Bonneville, Joel Barlow, Captain Imlay,
Mary Wollstonecraft, the Rolands. Mystical Madame Roland dreaded Paine's
power, which she considered more adapted to pull down than to build,
but has left a vivid impression of "the boldness of his conceptions,
the originality of his style, the striking truths he throws out bravely
among those whom they offend." The Mr. Shapworth alluded to is mentioned
in a manuscript journal of Daniel Constable, sent me by his nephew,
Clair J. Grece, LL.D. This English gentleman visited Baton Rouge and
Shapworth's plantation in 1822. "Mr. S.," he says, "has a daughter
married to the Governor [Robinson], has travelled in Europe, married a
French lady. He is a warm friend of Thomas Paine, as is his son-in-law.
He lived with Paine many months at Paris. He [Paine] was then a sober,
correct gentleman in appearance and manner." The English refugees,
persecuted for selling the "Rights of Man," were, of course, always
welcomed by Paine, and poor Rickman was his guest during this summer of
1793.* The following reminiscence of Paine, at a time when Gouverneur
Morris was (for reasons that presently appear) reporting him to his
American friends as generally drunk, was written by Rickman:
* Rickman appears to have escaped from England in 1792,
according to the following sonnet sent me by Dr. Grece. It
is headed: "Sonnet to my Little Girl, 1793. Written at
Calais, on being pursued by cruel prosecution and
persecution."
"Farewell, sweet babe! and mayst thou never know,
Like me, the pressure of exceeding woe.
Some griefs (for they are human nature's right)
On life's eventful stage will be thy lot;
Some generous cares to clear thy mental sight,
Some pains, in happiest hours, perhaps, begot;
But mayst thou ne'er be, like thy father, driven
From a loved partner, family, and home,
Snatched from each heart-felt bliss, domestic heaven!
From native shores, and all that's valued, roam.
Oh, may bad governments, the source of human woe,
Ere thou becom'st mature, receive their deadly blow;
Then mankind's greatest curse thou ne'et wilt know."
"He usually rose about seven. After breakfast he usually strayed an
hour or two in the garden, where he one morning pointed out the kind of
spider whose web furnished him with the first idea of constructing his
iron bridge; a fine model of which, in mahogany, is preserved in Paris.
The little happy circle who lived with him will ever remember those
days with delight: with these select friends he would talk of his boyish
days, played at chess, whist, piquet, or cribbage, and enliven the
moments by many interesting anecdotes: with these he would play at
marbles, scotch hops, battledores, etc.: on the broad and fine gravel
walk at the upper end of the garden, and then retire to his boudoir,
where he was up to his knees in letters and papers of various
descriptions. Here he remained till dinner time; and unless he visited
Brissot's family, or some particular friend, in the evening, which was
his frequent custom, he joined again the society of his favorites
and fellow-boarders, with whom his conversation was often witty and
cheerful, always acute and improving, but never frivolous. Incorrupt,
straightforward, and sincere, he pursued his political course in France,
as everywhere else, let the government or clamor or faction of the day
be what it might, with firmness, with clearness, and without a shadow of
turning."
In the spring of 1890 the present writer visited the spot. The lower
front of the old mansion is divided into shops,--a Fruiterer
being appropriately next the gateway, which now opens into a wide
thoroughfare. Above the rooms once occupied by Paine was the sign
"Ecrivain Publique,"--placed there by a Mademoiselle who wrote letters
and advertisements for humble neighbors not expert in penmanship. At the
end of what was once the garden is a Printer's office, in which was a
large lithograph portrait of Victor Hugo. The printer, his wife, and
little daughter were folding publications of the "Extreme Left." Near
the door remains a veritable survival of the garden and its living
tenants which amused Paine and his friends. There were two ancient
fruit trees, of which one was dying, but the other budding in the spring
sunshine. There were ancient coops with ducks, and pigeon-houses with
pigeons, also rabbits, and some flowers. This little nook, of perhaps
forty square feet, and its animals, had been there--so an old inhabitant
told me--time out of mind. They belonged to nobody in particular; the
pigeons were fed by the people around; the fowls were probably kept
there by some poultryman. There were eager groups attending every stage
of the investigation. The exceptional antiquity of the mansion had been
recognized by its occupants,--several families,--but without curiosity,
and perhaps with regret. Comparatively few had heard of Paine.
Shortly before I had visited the garden near Florence which Boccaccio's
immortal tales have kept in perennial beauty through five centuries. It
may be that in the far future some brother of Boccace will bequeath to
Paris as sweet a legend of the garden where beside the plague of blood
the prophet of the universal Republic realized his dream in microcosm.
Here gathered sympathetic spirits from America, England, France,
Germany, Holland, Switzerland, freed from prejudices of race, rank, or
nationality, striving to be mutually helpful, amusing themselves with
Arcadian sports, studying nature, enriching each other by exchange of
experiences. It is certain that in all the world there was no group of
men and women more disinterestedly absorbed in the work of benefiting
their fellow-beings. They could not, however, like Boccaccio's ladies
and gentlemen "kill Death" by their witty tales; for presently beloved
faces disappeared from their circle, and the cruel axe was gleaming over
them.
And now the old hotel became the republican capitol of Europe. There sat
an international Premier with his Cabinet, concentrated on the work of
saving the Girondins. He was indeed treated by the Executive government
as a Minister. It was supposed by Paine and believed by his adherents
that Robespierre had for him some dislike. Paine in later years wrote
of Robespierre as a "hypocrite," and the epithet may have a significance
not recognized by his readers. It is to me probable that Paine
considered himself deceived by Robespierre with professions of respect,
if not of friendliness before being cast into prison; a conclusion
naturally based on requests from the Ministers for opinions on public
affairs. The archives of the Revolution contain various evidences of
this, and several papers by Paine evidently in reply to questions. We
may feel certain that every subject propounded was carefully discussed
in Paine's little cosmopolitan Cabinet before his opinion was
transmitted to the revolutionary Cabinet of Committees. In reading the
subjoined documents it must be borne in mind that Robespierre had not
yet been suspected of the cruelty presently associated with his name.
The Queen and the Girondist leaders were yet alive. Of these leaders
Paine was known to be the friend, and it was of the utmost importance
that he should be suavely loyal to the government that had inherited
these prisoners from Marat's time.
The first of these papers is erroneously endorsed "January 1793. Thorn.
Payne. Copie," in the French State Archives.* Its reference to the
defeat of the Duke of York at Dunkirk assigns its date to the late
summer. It is headed, "Observations on the situation of the Powers
joined against France."
* Etats Unis. Vol. 37. Document 39.
"It is always useful to know the position and the designs of one's
enemies. It is much easier to do so by combining and comparing the
events, and by examining the consequences which result from them, than
by forming one's judgment by letters found or intercepted. These letters
could be fabricated with the intention of deceiving, but events or
circumstances have a character which is proper to them. If in the course
of our political operations we mistake the designs of our enemy, it
leads us to do precisely that which he desired we should do, and it
happens, by the fact, but against our intentions, that we work for him.
"It appears at first sight that the coalition against France is not of
the nature of those which form themselves by a treaty. It has been the
work of circumstances. It is a heterogeneous mass, the parts of which
dash against each other, and often neutralise themselves. They have but
one single point of reunion, the re-establishment of the monarchical
government in France. Two means can conduct them to the execution of
this plan. The first is, to re-establish the Bourbons, and with them the
Monarchy; the second, to make a division similar to that which they
have made in Poland, and to reign themselves in France. The political
questions to be solved are, then, to know on which of these two plans it
is most probable, the united Powers will act; and which are the points
of these plans on which they will agree or disagree.
"Supposing their aim to be the re-establishment of the Bourbons, the
difficulty which will present itself, will be, to know who will be their
Allies?
"Will England consent to the re-establishment of the compact of family
in the person of the Bourbons, against whom she has machinated and
fought since her existence? Will Prussia consent to re-establish the
alliance which subsisted between France and Austria, or will Austria
wish to re-establish the ancient alliance between France and Prussia,
which was directed against her? Will Spain, or any other maritime Power,
allow France and her Marine to ally themselves to England? In fine, will
any of these Powers consent to furnish forces which could be directed
against herself? However, all these cases present themselves in the
hypothesis of the restoration of the Bourbons.
"If we suppose that their plan be the dismemberment of France,
difficulties will present themselves under another form, but not of
the same nature. It will no longer be question, in this case, of the
Bourbons, as their position will be worse; for if their preservation
is a part of their first plan, their destruction ought to enter in the
second; because it is necessary for the success of the dismembering that
not a single pretendant to the Crown of France should exist.
"As one must think of all the probabilities in political calculations,
it is not unlikely that some of the united Powers, having in view the
first of these plans, and others the second,--that this may be one
of the causes of their disagreement It is to be remembered that Russia
recognised a Regency from the beginning of Spring; not one of the other
Powers followed her example. The distance of Russia from France, and the
different countries by which she is separated from her, leave no doubt
as to her dispositions with regard to the plan of division; and as much
as one can form an opinion on the circumstances, it is not her scheme.
"The coalition directed against France, is composed of two kinds of
Powers. The Maritime Powers, not having the same interest as the others,
will be divided, as to the execution of the project of division.
"I do not hesitate to believe that the politic of the English Government
is to foment the scheme of dismembering, and the entire destruction of
the Bourbon family.
"The difficulty which must arise, in this last hypothesis, be* tween the
united Maritime Powers proceeds from their views being entirely opposed.
"The trading vessels of the Northern Nations, from Holland to Russia,
must pass through the narrow Channel, which lies between Dunkirk and
the coasts of England; and consequently not one of them, will allow this
latter Power to have forts on both sides of this Strait. The audacity
with which she has seized the neutral vessels ought to demonstrate to
all Nations how much her schemes increase their danger, and menace the
security of their present and future commerce.
"Supposing then that the other Nations oppose the plans of England, she
will be forced to cease the war with us; or, if she continues it, the
Northern Nations will become interested in the safety of France.
"There are three distinct parties in England at this moment: the
Government party, the Revolutionary party, and an intermedial
party,--which is only opposed to the war on account of the expense it
entails, and the harm it does commerce and manufacture. I am speaking
of the People, and not of the Parliament The latter is divided into two
parties: the Ministerial, and the Anti-Ministerial. The Revolutionary
party, the intermedial party and the Anti-Ministerial party will all
rejoice, publicly or privately, at the defeat of the Duke of York's
army, at Dunkirk. The intermedial party, because they hope that this
defeat will finish the war. The Antiministerial party, because they hope
it will overthrow the Ministry. And all the three because they hate the
Duke of York. Such is the state of the different parties in England.
"Signed: Thomas Paine."
In the same volume of the State Archives (Paris) is the following note
by Paine, with its translation:
"You mentioned to me that saltpetre was becoming scarce. I communicate
to you a project of the late Captain Paul Jones, which, if successfully
put in practice, will furnish you with that article.
"All the English East India ships put into St. Helena, off the coast
of Africa, on their return from India to England. A great part of their
ballast is saltpetre. Captain Jones, who had been at St. Helena, says
that the place can be very easily taken. His proposal was to send off
a small squadron for that purpose, to keep the English flag flying at
port. The English vessels will continue coming in as usual. By this
means it will be a long time before the Government of England can have
any knowledge of what has happened. The success of this depends so much
upon secrecy that I wish you would translate this yourself, and give it
to Barrere."
In the next volume (38) of the French Archives, marked "Etats Unis,
1793," is a remarkable document (No. 39), entitled "A Citizen of America
to the Citizens of Europe." The name of Paine is only pencilled on it,
and it was probably written by him; but it purports to have been written
in America, and is dated "Philadelphia, July 28, 1793; 18th Year of
Independence." It is a clerk's copy, so that it cannot now be known
whether the ruse of its origin in Philadelphia was due to Paine or to
the government It is an extended paper, and repeats to some extent,
though not literally, what is said in the "Observations" quoted above.
Possibly the government, on receiving that paper (Document 39 also),
desired Paine to write it out as an address to the "Citizens of Europe."
It does not appear to have been published. The first four paragraphs of
this paper, combined with the "Observations," will suffice to show its
character.
"Understanding that a proposal is intended to be made at the ensuing
meeting of the Congress of the United States of America, to send
Commissioners to Europe to confer with the Ministers of all the Neutral
Powers, for the purpose of negotiating preliminaries of Peace, I address
this letter to you on that subject, and on the several matters connected
therewith.
"In order to discuss this subject through all its circumstances, it
will be necessary to take a review of the state of Europe, prior to the
French revolution. It will from thence appear, that the powers leagued
against France are fighting to attain an object, which, were it possible
to be attained, would be injurious to themselves.
"This is not an uncommon error in the history of wars and governments,
of which the conduct of the English government in the war against
America is a striking instance. She commenced that war for the avowed
purpose of subjugating America; and after wasting upwards of one hundred
millions sterling, and then abandoning the object, she discovered in
the course of three or four years, that the prosperity of England was
increased, instead of being diminished, by the independence of America.
In short, every circumstance is pregnant with some natural effect, upon
which intentions and opinions have no influence; and the political error
lies in misjudging what the effect will be. England misjudged it in
the American war, and the reasons I shall now offer will shew, that she
misjudges it in the present war.--In discussing this subject, I
leave out of the question every thing respecting forms and systems of
government; for as all the governments of Europe differ from each other,
there is no reason that the government of France should not differ from
the rest.
"The clamours continually raised in all the countries of Europe were,
that the family of the Bourbons was become too powerful; that the
intrigues of the court of France endangered the peace of Europe. Austria
saw with a jealous eye the connection of France with Prussia; and
Prussia, in her turn became jealous of the connection of France with
Austria; England had wasted millions unsuccessfully in attempting to
prevent the family compact with Spain; Russia disliked the alliance
between France and Turkey; and Turkey became apprehensive of the
inclination of France towards an alliance with Russia. Sometimes the
quadruple alliance alarmed some of the powers, and at other times a
contrary system alarmed others, and in all those cases the charge was
always made against the intrigues of the Bourbons."
In each of these papers a plea for the imperilled Girondins is audible.
Each is a reminder that he, Thomas Paine, friend of the Brissotins,
is continuing their anxious and loyal vigilance for the Republic. And
during all this summer Paine had good reason to believe that his friends
were safe. Robespierre was eloquently deprecating useless effusion
of blood. As for Paine himself, he was not only consulted on public
questions, but trusted in practical affairs. He was still able to help
Americans and Englishmen who invoked his aid. Writing to Lady Smith
concerning two applications of that kind, he says:
"I went into my chamber to write and sign a certificate for them, which
I intended to take to the guard house to obtain their release. Just as
I had finished it, a man came into my room, dressed in the Parisian
uniform of a captain, and spoke to me in good English, and with a good
address. He told me that two young men, Englishmen, were arrested and
detained in the guard house, and that the section (meaning those who
represented and acted for the section) had sent him to ask me if I knew
them, in which case they would be liberated. This matter being soon
settled between us, he talked to me about the Revolution, and something
about the 'Rights of Man,' which he had read in English; and at parting
offered me, in a polite and civil manner, his services. And who do you
think the man was who offered me his services? It was no other than the
public executioner, Samson, who guillotined the King and all who were
guillotined in Paris, and who lived in the same street with me."
There appeared no reason to suppose this a domiciliary visit, or that it
had any relation to anything except the two Englishmen. Samson was not
a detective. It soon turned out, however, that there was a serpent
creeping into Paine's little garden in the Faubourg St Denis. He and his
guests knew it not, however, until all their hopes fell with the leaves
and blossoms amid which they had passed a summer to which Paine, from
his prison, looked back with fond recollection.
CHAPTER V. A CONSPIRACY
"He suffered under Pontius Pilate." Pilate's gallant struggle to save
Jesus from lynchers survives in no kindly memorial save among the
peasants of Oberammergau. It is said that the impression once made
in England by the Miracle Play has left its relic in the miserable
puppet-play Punch and Judy (_Pontius cum Judoeis_); but meanwhile the
Church repeats, throughout Christendom, "He suffered under Pontius
Pilate." It is almost normal in history that the brand of infamy
falls on the wrong man. This is the penalty of personal eminence, and
especially of eloquence. In the opening years of the French Revolution
the two men in Europe who seemed omnipotent were Pitt and Robespierre.
By reason of their eloquence, their ingenious defences, their fame, the
columns of credit and discredit were begun in their names, and have so
continued. English liberalism, remembering the imprisoned and flying
writers, still repeats, "They suffered under William Pitt." French
republics transmit their legend of Condorcet, Camille Desmoulins,
Brissot, Malesherbes, "They suffered under Robespierre." The friends,
disciples, biographers, of Thomas Paine have it in their creed that he
suffered under both Pitt and Robespierre, It is certain that neither
Pitt nor Robespierre was so strong as he appeared. Their hands cannot
be cleansed, but they are historic scapegoats of innumerable sins they
never committed.
Unfortunately for Robespierre's memory, in England and America
especially, those who for a century might have been the most ready to
vindicate a slandered revolutionist have been confronted by the long
imprisonment of the author of the "Rights of Man," and by the discovery
of his virtual death-sentence in Robespierre's handwriting. Louis Blanc,
Robespierre's great vindicator, could not, we may assume, explain this
ugly fact, which he passes by in silence, He has proved, conclusively as
I think, that Robespierre was among the revolutionists least guilty
of the Terror; that he was murdered by a conspiracy of those whose
cruelties he was trying to restrain; that, when no longer alive to
answer, they burdened him with their crimes, as the only means of saving
their heads. Robespierre's doom was sealed when he had real power, and
used it to prevent any organization of the constitutional government
which might have checked revolutionary excesses. He then, because of
a superstitious faith in the auspices of the Supreme Being, threw the
reins upon the neck of the revolution he afterwards vainly tried to
curb. Others, who did not wish to restrain it, seized the reins and when
the precipice was reached took care that Robespierre should be hurled
over it.
Many allegations against Robespierre have been disproved He tried to
save Danton and Camille Desmoulins, and did save seventy-three deputies
whose death the potentates of the Committee of Public Safety had
planned. But against him still lies that terrible sentence found in his
Note Book, and reported by a Committee to the Convention: "Demand that
Thomas Payne be decreed of accusation for the interests of America as
much as of France."*
* "Demander que Thomas Payne soit decrete d'accusation pour
les interets de l'Amerique autant que de la France."
The Committee on Robespierre's papers, and especially Courtois its
Chairman, suppressed some things favorable to him (published long
after), and it can never be known whether they found anything further
about Paine. They made a strong point of the sentence found, and added:
"Why Thomas Payne more than another? Because he helped to establish the
liberty of both worlds."
An essay by Paine on Robespierre has been lost, and his opinion of the
man can be gathered only from occasional remarks. After the Courtois
report he had to accept the theory of Robespierre's malevolence and
hypocrisy. He then, for the first time, suspected the same hand in a
previous act of hostility towards him. In August, 1793, an address had
been sent to the Convention from Arras, a town in his constituency,
saying that they had lost confidence in Paine. This failed of success
because a counter-address came from St. Omer. Robespierre being a native
of Arras, it now seemed clear that he had instigated the address. It
was, however, almost certainly the work of Joseph Le-bon, who, as Paine
once wrote, "made the streets of Arras run with blood" Lebon was his
_suppleant_, and could not sit in the Convention until Paine left it.
But although Paine would appear to have ascribed his misfortunes to
Robespierre at the time, he was evidently mystified by the whole thing.
No word against him had ever fallen from Robespierre's lips, and if that
leader had been hostile to him why should he have excepted him from the
accusations of his associates, have consulted him through the summer,
and even after imprisonment, kept him unharmed for months? There is a
notable sentence in Paine's letter (from prison) to Monroe, elsewhere
considered, showing that while there he had connected his trouble rather
with the Committee of Public Safety than with Robespierre.
"However discordant the late American Minister Gouvernoeur Morris, and
the late French Committee of Public Safety, were, it suited the purposes
of both that I should be continued in arrestation. The former wished to
prevent my return to America, that I should not expose his misconduct;
and the latter lest I should publish to the world the history of its
wickedness. Whilst that Minister and that Committee continued, I had
no expectation of liberty. I speak here of the Committee of which
Robespierre was a member."
Paine wrote this letter on September 10, 1794. Robespierre, three
months before that, had ceased to attend the Committee, disavowing
responsibility for its actions: Paine was not released. Robespierre,
when the letter to Monroe was written, had been dead more than six
months: Paine was not released The prisoner had therefore good reason to
look behind Robespierre for his enemies; and although the fatal sentence
found in the Note Book, and a private assurance of Barrere, caused him
to ascribe his wrongs to Robespierre, farther reflection convinced him
that hands more hidden had also been at work. He knew that Robespierre
was a man of measured words, and pondered the sentence that he should
"be decreed of accusation for the interests of America as much as of
France." In a letter written in 1802, Paine said: "There must have been
a coalition in sentiment, if not in fact, between the terrorists of
America and the terrorists of France, and Robespierre must have known
it, or he could not have had the idea of putting America into the bill
of accusation against me." Robespierre, he remarks, assigned no reason
for his imprisonment.
The secret for which Paine groped has remained hidden for a hundred
years. It is painful to reveal it now, but historic justice, not only to
the memory of Paine, but to that of some eminent contemporaries of his,
demands that the facts be brought to light.
The appointment of Gouverneur Morris to be Minister to France, in 1792,
passed the Senate by 16 to 11 votes. The President did not fail to
advise him of this reluctance, and admonish him to be more cautious in
his conduct. In the same year Paine took his seat in the Convention.
Thus the royalist and republican tendencies, whose struggles made
chronic war in Washington's Cabinet, had their counterpart in Paris,
where our Minister Morris wrote royalist, and Paine republican,
manifestoes. It will have been seen, by quotations from his diary
already given, that Gouverneur Morris harbored a secret hostility
towards Paine; and it is here assumed that those entries and incidents
are borne in mind. The Diary shows an appearance of friendly terms
between the two; Morris dines Paine and receives information from him.
The royalism of Morris and humanity of Paine brought them into a common
desire to save the life of Louis.
But about the same time the American Minister's own position became a
subject of anxiety to him. He informs Washington (December 28, 1792)
that Genet's appointment as Minister to the United States had not been
announced to him (Morris). "Perhaps the Ministry think it is a trait of
republicanism to omit those forms which were anciently used to express
good will." His disposition towards Paine was not improved by finding
that it was to him Genet had reported. "I have not yet seen M. Genet,"
writes Morris again, "but Mr. Paine is to introduce him to me." Soon
after this Morris became aware that the French Ministry had asked
his recall, and had Paine also known this the event might have been
different The Minister's suspicion that Paine had instigated the recall
gave deadliness to his resentment when the inevitable break came between
them.
The occasion of this arose early in the spring. When war had broken out
between England and France, Morris, whose sympathies were with England,
was eager to rid America of its treaty obligations to France. He so
wrote repeatedly to Jefferson, Secretary of State. An opportunity
presently occurred for acting on this idea. In reprisal for the seizure
by British cruisers of American ships conveying provisions to France,
French cruisers were ordered to do the like, and there were presently
ninety-two captured American vessels at Bordeaux. They were not allowed
to reload and go to sea lest their cargoes should be captured by
England. Morris pointed out to the French Government this violation of
the treaty with America, but wrote to Jefferson that he would leave
it to them in Philadelphia to insist on the treaty's observance, or to
accept the "unfettered" condition in which its violation by France left
them. Consultation with Philadelphia was a slow business, however,
and the troubles of the American vessels were urgent The captains, not
suspecting that the American Minister was satisfied with the treaty's
violation, were angry at his indifference about their relief, and
applied to Paine. Unable to move Morris, Paine asked him "if he did not
feel ashamed to take the money of the country and do nothing for it" It
was, of course, a part of Morris' scheme for ending the treaty to point
out its violation and the hardships resulting, and this he did; but
it would defeat his scheme to obtain the practical relief from those
hardships which the un-theoretical captains demanded. On August 20th,
the captains were angrily repulsed by the American Minister, who,
however, after they had gone, must have reflected that he had gone too
far, and was in an untenable position; for on the same day he wrote to
the French Minister a statement of the complaint.
"I do not [he adds] pretend to interfere in the internal concerns of the
French Republic, and I am persuaded that the Convention has had weighty
reasons for laying upon Americans the restriction of which the American
captains complain. The result will nevertheless be that this prohibition
will severely aggrieve the parties interested, and put an end to the
commerce between France and the United States."
The note is half-hearted, but had the captains known it was written
they might have been more patient Morris owed his subsequent humiliation
partly to his bad manners. The captains went off to Paine, and proposed
to draw up a public protest against the American Minister. Paine advised
against this, and recommended a petition to the Convention. This was
offered on August 22d. In this the captains said: "We, who know your
political situation, do not come to you to demand the rigorous execution
of the treaties of alliance which unite us to you. We confine ourselves
to asking for the present, to carry provisions to your colonies." To
this the Convention promptly and favorably responded.
It was a double humiliation to Morris that the first important benefit
gained by Americans since his appointment should be secured without his
help, and that it should come through Paine. And it was a damaging blow
to his scheme of transferring to England our alliance with France. A
"violation" of the treaty excused by the only sufferers could not be
cited as "releasing" the United States. A cruel circumstance for
Morris was that the French Minister wrote (October 14th): "You must be
satisfied, sir, with the manner in which the request presented by the
American captains from Bordeaux, has been received"--and so forth. Four
days before, Morris had written to Jefferson, speaking of the thing
as mere "mischief," and belittling the success, which "only served
an ambition so contemptible that I shall draw over it the veil of
oblivion."
The "contemptible ambition" thus veiled from Paine's friend, Jefferson,
was revealed by Morris to others. Some time before (June 25th), he had
written to Robert Morris:
"I suspected that Paine was intriguing against me, although he put on a
face of attachment. Since that period I am confirmed in the idea, for
he came to my house with Col. Oswald, and being a little more drunk than
usual, behaved extremely ill, and through his insolence I discovered
clearly his vain ambition."
This was probably written after Paine's rebuke already quoted. It is not
likely that Colonel Oswald would have taken a tipsy man eight leagues
out to Morris' retreat, Sainport, on business, or that the tipsy man
would remember the words of his rebuke two years after, when Paine
records them in his letter to Washington. At any rate, if Morris saw
no deeper into Paine's physical than into his mental condition, the
"insolent" words were those of soberness. For Paine's private letters
prove him ignorant of any intrigue against Morris, and under an
impression that the Minister had himself asked for recall; also that,
instead of being ambitious to succeed Morris, he was eager to get out
of France and back to America. The first expression of French
dissatisfaction with Morris had been made through De Ternant, (February
20th, 1793,) whom he had himself been the means of sending as Minister
to the United States. The positive recall was made through Genet.*
* On September I, 1792, Morris answered a request of the
executive of the republic that he could not comply until
he had received "orders from his Court," (les ordres de ma
cour). The representatives of the new-born republic were
scandalized by such an expression from an American Minister,
and also by his intimacy with Lord and Lady Gower. They
may have suspected what Morris' "Diary" now suggests, that
he (Morris) owed his appointment to this English Ambassador
and his wife. On August 17, 1792, Lord Gower was
recalled, in hostility to the republic, but during the
further weeks of his stay in Paris the American Minister
frequented their house. From the recall Morris was
saved for a year by the intervention of Edmund Randolph.
(See my "Omitted Chapters of History," etc, p. 149.)
Randolph met with a Morrisian reward. Morris ("Diary,"
ii., p. 98) records an accusation of Randolph, to which he
listened in the office of Lord Grenville, Secretary of!
State, which plainly meant his (Randolph's) ruin, which
followed. He I knew it to be untrue, but no defence is
mentioned.
It would appear that Morris must have had sore need of a scapegoat to
fix on poor Paine, when his intrigues with the King's agents, his
trust of the King's money, his plot for a second attempt of the King to
escape, his concealment of royalist leaders in his house, had been his
main ministerial performances for some time after his appointment. Had
the French known half as much as is now revealed in Morris' Diary, not
even his office could have shielded him from arrest. That the executive
there knew much of it, appears in the revolutionary archives. There is
reason to believe that Paine, instead of intriguing against Morris,
had, in ignorance of his intrigues, brought suspicion on himself by
continuing his intercourse with the Minister. The following letter of
Paine to Barrere, chief Committeeman of Public Safety, dated September
5th, shows him protecting Morris while he is trying to do something for
the American captains.
"I send you the papers you asked me for.
"The idea you have to send Commissioners to Congress, and of which you
spoke to me yesterday, is excellent, and very necessary at this moment.
Mr. Jefferson, formerly Minister of the United States in France, and
actually Minister for Foreign Affairs at Congress, is an ardent defender
of the interests of France. Gouverneur Morris, who is here now, is
badly disposed towards you. I believe he has expressed the wish to be
recalled. The reports which he will make on his arrival will not be to
the advantage of France. This event necessitates the sending direct of
Commissioners from the Convention. Morris is not popular in America. He
has set the Americans who are here against him, as also the Captains of
that Nation who have come from Bordeaux, by his negligence with regard
to the affair they had to treat about with the Convention. _Between us_
[sic] he told them: 'That they had thrown themselves into the lion's
mouth, and it was for them to get out of it as best they could.' I shall
return to America on one of the vessels which will start from Bordeaux
in the month of October. This was the project I had formed, should
the rupture not take place between America and England; but now it is
necessary for me to be there as soon as possible. The Congress will
require a great deal of information, independently of this. It will soon
be seven years that I have been absent from America, and my affairs in
that country have suffered considerably through my absence. My house and
farm buildings have been entirely destroyed through an accidental fire.
"Morris has many relations in America, who are excellent patriots. I
enclose you a letter which I received from his brother, General Louis
Morris, who was a member of the Congress at the time of the Declaration
of Independence. You will see by it that he writes like a good patriot.
I only mention this so that you may know the true state of things. It
will be fit to have respect for Gouverneur Morris, on account of his
relations, who, as I said above, are excellent patriots.
"There are about 45 American vessels at Bordeaux, at the present moment.
If the English Government wished to take revenge on the Americans, these
vessels would be very much exposed during their passage. The American
Captains left Paris yesterday. I advised them, on leaving, to demand a
convoy of the Convention, in case they heard it said that the English
had begun reprisals against the Americans, if only to conduct as far as
the Bay of Biscay, at the expense of the American Government. But if the
Convention determines to send Commissioners to Congress, they will be
sent in a ship of the line. But it would be better for the Commissioners
to go in one of the best American sailing vessels, and for the ship of
the line to serve as a convoy; it could also serve to convoy the ships
that will return to France charged with flour. I am sorry that we cannot
converse together, but if you could give me a rendezvous, where I could
see Mr. Otto, I shall be happy and ready to be there. If events force
the American captains to demand a convoy, it will be to me that they
will write on the subject, and not to Morris, against whom they have
grave reasons of complaint Your friend, etc. Thomas Paine."*
* State Archives, Paris. Etats Unis, Vol. 38, No. 93.
Endorsed: "No. 6. Translation of a letter from Thomas
Payne to Citizen Barrere." It may be noted that Paine and
Barrere, though they could read each other's language, could
converse only in their own tongue.
This is the only letter written by Paine to any one in France about
Gouverneur Morris, so far as I can discover, and not knowing French he
could only communicate in writing. The American Archives are equally
without anything to justify the Minister's suspicion that Paine was
intriguing against him, even after his outrageous conduct about the
captains. Morris had laid aside the functions of a Minister to exercise
those of a treaty-making government. During this excursion into
presidential and senatorial power, for the injury of the country to
which he was commissioned, his own countrymen in France were without an
official Minister, and in their distress imposed ministerial duties on
Paine. But so far from wishing to supersede Morris, Paine, in the above
letter to Barrere, gives an argument for his retention, namely, that
if he goes home he will make reports disadvantageous to France. He
also asks respect for Morris on account of his relations, "excellent
patriots." Barrere, to whom Paine's letter is written, was chief of the
Committee of Public Safety, and had held that powerful position since
its establishment, April 6, 1793. To this all-powerful Committee of Nine
Robespierre was added July 27th. On the day that Paine wrote the letter,
September 5th, Barrere opened the Terror by presenting a report in which
it is said, "Let us make terror the order of the day!" This Barrere was
a sensualist, a crafty orator, a sort of eel which in danger turned into
a snake. His "supple genius," as Louis Blanc expresses it, was probably
appreciated by Morris, who was kept well informed as to the secrets
of the Committee of Public Safety. This omnipotent Committee had
supervision of foreign affairs and appointments. At this time the
Minister of Foreign Affairs was Deforgues, whose secretary was the
M. Otto alluded to in Paine's letter to Barrere. Otto spoke English
fluently; he had been in the American Legation. Deforgues became
Minister June 5th, on the arrest of his predecessor (Lebrun), and was
anxious lest he should follow Lebrun to prison also,--as he ultimately
did. Deforgues and his secretary, Otto, confided to Morris their strong
desire to be appointed to America, Genet having been recalled.*
Despite the fact that Morris' hostility to France was well known, he had
become an object of awe. So long as his removal was daily expected in
reply to a request twice sent for his recall, Morris was weak, and even
insulted. But when ship after ship came in without such recall, and at
length even with the news that the President had refused the Senate's
demand for Morris' entire correspondence, everything was changed.**
* Morris' letter to Washington, Oct. 18, 1793. The
passage is omitted from the letter as quoted in his "Diary
and Letters" ii., p. 53.
** See my "Life of Edmund Randolph," p. 214.
"So long," writes Morris to Washington, "as they believed in the success
of their demand, they treated my representations with indifference
and contempt; but at last, hearing nothing from their minister on that
subject, or, indeed, on any other, they took it into their heads that I
was immovable, and made overtures for conciliation." It must be borne in
mind that at this time America was the only ally of France; that already
there were fears that Washington was feeling his way towards a treaty
with England. Soon after the overthrow of the monarchy Morris had hinted
that the treaty between the United States and France, having been made
with the King, might be represented by the English Ministry in America
as void under the revolution; and that "it would be well to evince a
degree of good will to America." When Robespierre first became a leader
he had particular charge of diplomatic affairs. It is stated by Frederic
Masson that Robespierre was very anxious to recover for the republic the
initiative of the alliance with the United States, which was credited
to the King; and "although their Minister Gouverneur Morris was justly
suspected, and the American republic was at that time aiming only to
utilize the condition of its ally, the French republic cleared it at a
cheap rate of its debts contracted with the King."*
* "Le Departement des Affaires Etrangeres pendant la
Revolution," P-295.
Such were the circumstances which, when Washington seemed determined
to force Morris on France, made this Minister a power. Lebrun, the
ministerial predecessor of Deforgues, may indeed have been immolated to
placate Morris, who having been, under his administration, subjected to
a domiciliary visit, had gone to reside in the country. That was when
Morris' removal was supposed near; but now his turn came for a little
reign of terror on his own account In addition to Deforgues' fear of
Lebrun's fate, should he anger Washington's immovable representative, he
knew that his hope of succeeding Genet in America must depend on Morris.
The terrors and schemes of Deforgues and Otto brought them to the feet
of Morris. About the time when the chief of the Committee of Public
Safety, Barrere, was consulting Paine about sending Commissioners
to America, Deforgues was consulting Morris on the same point. The
interview was held shortly after the humiliation which Morris had
suffered, in the matter of the captains, and the defeat of his scheme
for utilizing their grievance to release the United States from their
alliance. The American captains had appointed Paine their Minister, and
he had been successful. Paine and his clients had not stood in awe of
Morris; but he now had the strength of a giant, and proceeded to use it
like a giant.
The interview with Deforgues was not reported by Morris to the Secretary
of State (Paine's friend, Jefferson), but in a confidential letter to
Washington,--so far as was prudent.
"I have insinuated [he writes] the advantages which might result from
an early declaration on the part of the new minister that, as France has
announced the determination not to meddle with the interior affairs of
other nations, he can know only the _government_ of America. In union
with this idea, I told the minister that I had observed an overruling
influence in their affairs which seemed to come from the other side of
the channel, and at the same time had traced the intention to excite a
seditious spirit in America; that it was impossible to be on a friendly
footing with such persons, but that at present a different spirit seemed
to prevail, etc. This declaration produced the effect I intended."*
* Letter to Washington, Oct. 18, 1793.
In thus requiring that the new minister to America shall recognize only
the "government" (and not negotiate with Kentucky, as Genet had done),
notice is also served on Deforgues that the Convention must in future
deal only with the American Minister, and not with Paine or sea-captains
in matters affecting his countrymen. The reference to an influence from
the other side of the channel could only refer to Paine, as there were
then no Englishmen in Paris outside his garden in the Faubourg St.
Denis. By this ingenious phrase Morris already disclaims jurisdiction
over Paine, and suggests that he is an Englishman worrying Washington
through Genet This was a clever hint in another way. Genet, now
recalled, evidently for the guillotine, had been introduced to Morris
by Paine, who no doubt had given him letters to eminent Americans. Paine
had sympathized warmly with the project of the Kentuckians to expel the
Spanish from the Mississippi, and this was patriotic American doctrine
even after Kentucky was admitted into the Union (June 1, 1792). He had
corresponded with Dr. O'Fallon, a leading Kentuckian on the subject But
things had changed, and when Genet went out with his blank commissions
he found himself confronted with a proclamation of neutrality which
turned his use of them to sedition. Paine's acquaintance with Genet, and
his introductions, could now be plausibly used by Morris to involve him.
The French Minister is shown an easy way of relieving his country from
responsibility for Genet, by placing it on the deputy from "the other
side of the channel."
"This declaration produced the effect I intended," wrote Morris. The
effect was indeed swift On October 3d, Amar, after the doors of the
Convention were locked, read the memorable accusation against the
Girondins, four weeks before their execution. In that paper he denounced
Brissot for his effort to save the King, for his intimacy with the
English, for injuring the colonies by his labors for negro emancipation!
In this denunciation Paine had the honor to be included.
"At that same time the Englishman Thomas Paine, called by the faction
[Girondin] to the honor of representing the French nation, dishonored
himself by supporting the opinion of Brissot, and by promising us in his
fable the dissatisfaction of the United States of America, our natural
allies, which he did not blush to depict for us as full of veneration
and gratitude for the tyrant of France."
On October 19th the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Deforgues, writes to
Morris:
"I shall give the Council an account of the punishable conduct of their
agent in the United States [Genet], and I can assure you beforehand that
they will regard the strange abuse of their confidence by this agent, as
I do, with the liveliest indignation. The President of the United States
has done justice to our sentiments in attributing the deviations of the
citizen Genet to causes entirely foreign to his instructions, and we
hope that the measures to be taken will more and more convince the head
and members of your Government that so far from having authorized the
proceedings and manoeuvres of Citizen Genet our only aim has been to
maintain between the two nations the most perfect harmony."
One of "the measures to be taken" was the imprisonment of Paine, for
which Amar's denunciation had prepared the way. But this was not so
easy. For Robespierre had successfully attacked Amar's report for
extending its accusations beyond the Girondins. How then could an
accusation be made against Paine, against whom no charge could be
brought, except that he had introduced a French minister to his friends
in America! A deputy must be formally accused by the Convention before
he could be tried by the Revolutionary Tribunal. An indirect route must
be taken to reach the deputy secretly accused by the American Minister,
and the latter had pointed it out by alluding to Paine as an influence
"from across the channel." There was a law passed in June for the
imprisonment of foreigners belonging to countries at war with France.
This was administered by the Committees. Paine had not been liable to
this law, being a deputy, and never suspected of citizenship in the
country which had outlawed him, until Morris suggested it. Could he
be got out of the Convention the law might be applied to him without
necessitating any public accusation and trial, or anything more than an
announcement to the Deputies.
Such was the course pursued. Christmas day was celebrated by the
terrorist Bourdon de l'Oise with a denunciation of Paine: "They have
boasted the patriotism of Thomas Paine. _Eh bien!_ Since the Brissotins
disappeared from the bosom of this Convention he has not set foot in it.
And I know that he has intrigued with a former agent of the bureau of
Foreign Affairs." This accusation could only have come from the American
Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs--from Gouverneur Morris and
Deforgues. Genet was the only agent of Deforgues' office with whom Paine
could possibly have been connected; and what that connection was the
reader knows. That accusation is associated with the terrorist's charge
that Paine had declined to unite with the murderous decrees of the
Convention.
After the speech of Bourdon de l'Oise, Bentabole moved the "exclusion
of foreigners from every public function during the war." Bentabole was
a leading member of the Committee of General Surety. "The Assembly,"
adds _The Moniteur_, "decreed that no foreigner should be admitted to
represent the French people." The Committee of General Surety assumed
the right to regard Paine as an Englishman; and as such out of the
Convention, and consequently under the law of June against aliens
of hostile nations. He was arrested next day, and on December 28th
committed to the Luxembourg prison.
CHAPTER VI. A TESTIMONY UNDER THE GUILLOTINE
While Paine was in prison the English gentry were gladdened by a rumor
that he had been guillotined, and a libellous leaflet of "The Last Dying
Words of Thomas Paine" appeared in London. Paine was no less confident
than his enemies that his execution was certain--after the denunciation
in Amar's report, October 3d--and did indeed utter what may be regarded
as his dying words--"The Age of Reason." This was the task which he
had from year to year adjourned to his maturest powers, and to it he
dedicates what brief remnant of life may await him. That completed, it
will be time to die with his comrades, awakened by his pen to a dawn now
red with their blood.
The last letter I find written from the old Pompadour mansion is to
Jefferson, under date of October 20th:
"Dear Sir,--I wrote you by Captain Dominick who was to sail from Havre
about the 20th of this month. This will probably be brought you by Mr.
Barlow or Col. Oswald. Since my letter by Dominick I am every day
more convinced and impressed with the propriety of Congress sending
Commissioners to Europe to confer with the Ministers of the Jesuitical
Powers on the means of terminating the war. The enclosed printed paper
will shew there are a variety of subjects to be taken into consideration
which did not appear at first, all of which have some tendency to put
an end to the war. I see not how this war is to terminate if some
intermediate power does not step forward. There is now no prospect that
France can carry revolutions thro' Europe on the one hand, or that the
combined powers can conquer France on the other hand. It is a sort
of defensive War on both sides. This being the case how is the War
to close? Neither side will ask for peace though each may wish it. I
believe that England and Holland are tired of the war. Their Commerce
and Manufactures have suffered most exceedingly--and besides this it is
to them a war without an object. Russia keeps her-self at a distance.
I cannot help repeating my wish that Congress would send Commissioners,
and I wish also that yourself would venture once more across the Ocean
as one of them. If the Commissioners rendezvous at Holland they would
then know what steps to take. They could call Mr. Pinckney to their
Councils, and it would be of use, on many accounts, that one of them
should come over from Holland to France. Perhaps a long truce, were it
proposed by the neutral Powers, would have all the effects of a Peace,
without the difficulties attending the adjustment of all the forms of
Peace.--Yours affectionately Thomas Paine."
* I am indebted for this letter to Dr. John S. H. Fogg, of
Boston. The letter is endorsed by Jefferson, "Rec'd Mar.
3." (1794.)
Thus has finally faded the dream of Paine's life--an international
republic.
It is notable that in this letter Paine makes no mention of his own
danger. He may have done so in the previous letter, unfound, to which
he alludes. Why he made no attempt to escape after Amar's report seems a
mystery, especially as he was assisting others to leave the country. Two
of his friends, Johnson and Choppin--the last to part from him in the
old garden,--escaped to Switzerland. Johnson will be remembered as the
young man who attempted suicide on hearing of Marat's menaces against
Paine. Writing to Lady Smith of these two friends, he says:
"He [Johnson] recovered, and being anxious to get out of France, a
passport was obtained for him and Mr. Choppin; they received it late in
the evening, and set off the next morning for Basle, before four, from
which place I had a letter from them, highly pleased with their escape
from France, into which they had entered with an enthusiasm of patriotic
devotion. Ah, France! thou hast ruined the character of a revolution
virtuously begun, and destroyed those who produced it. I might also say
like Job's servant, 'and I only am escaped.'
"Two days after they were gone I heard a rapping at the gate, and
looking out of the window of the bedroom I saw the landlord going with
the candle to the gate, which he opened; and a guard with muskets and
fixed bayonets entered. I went to bed again and made up my mind for
prison, for I was the only lodger. It was a guard to take up Johnson and
Choppin, but, I thank God, they were out of their reach.
"The guard came about a month after, in the night, and took away
the landlord, George. And the scene in the house finished with the
arrestation of myself. This was soon after you called on me, and sorry
I was that it was not in my power to render to Sir [Robert Smith] the
service that you asked."
All then had fled. Even the old landlord had been arrested. In the
wintry garden this lone man--in whose brain and heart the republic and
the religion of humanity have their abode--moves companionless. In
the great mansion, where once Madame de Pompadour glittered amid
her courtiers, where in the past summer gathered the Round Table of
great-hearted gentlemen and ladies. Thomas Paine sits through the
watches of the night at his devout task.*
"My friends were falling as fast as the guillotine could cut their heads
off, and as I expected, every day, the same fate, I resolved to begin my
work. I appeared to myself to be on my death bed, for death was on every
side of me, and I had no time to lose. This accounts for my writing at
the time I did, and so nicely did the time and intention meet, that I
had not finished the first part of the work more than six hours before
I was arrested and taken to prison. The people of France were running
headlong into atheism, and I had the work translated in their own
language, to stop them in that career, and fix them to the first article
of every man's creed, who has any creed at all--_I believe in God_."**
* It was a resumed task. Early in the year Paine had brought
to his colleague Lanthenas a manuscript on religion,
probably entitled "The Age of Reason." Lanthenas translated
it, and had it printed in French, though no trace of its
circulation appears. At that time Lanthenas may have
apprehended blood about to be shed, the tribute to one that
was pierced in trying to benefit mankind.
** Letter to Samuel Adams. The execution of the
Girondins took place on October 31st.
The second Christmas of the new republican era dawns. Where is the
vision that has led this wayworn pilgrim? Where the star he has followed
so long, to find it hovering over the new birth of humanity? It may have
been on that day that, amid the shades of his slain friends, he wrote,
as with the proscription which fell on him, with the other Girondins, in
May, and took the precaution to show Paine's essay to Couthon, who,
with Robespierre, had religious matters particularly in charge.
Couthon frowned on the work and on Paine, and reproached Lanthenas for
translating it. There was no frown more formidable than that of Couthon,
and the essay (printed only in French) seems to have been suppressed.
At the close of the year Paine wrote the whole work _de novo_. The first
edition in English, now before me, was printed in Paris, by Barrois,
1794. In his preface to Part II., Paine implies a previous draft in
saying: "I had not finished it more than six hours, _in the state it has
since appeared_, before a guard came," etc (The italics are mine.) The
fact of the early translation appears in a letter of Lanthenas to Merlin
de Thionville.
"Nothing that is here said can apply, even with the most distant
disrespect, to the real character of Jesus Christ. He was a virtuous and
amiable man. The morality that he preached and practised was of the
most benevolent kind; and though similar systems of morality had been
preached by Confucius, and by some of the Greek philosophers, many years
before, by the Quakers since, and by good men in all ages, it has not
been exceeded by any.... He preached most excellent morality, and the
equality of man; but he preached also against the corruption and
avarice of the Jewish priests, and this brought upon him the hatred and
vengeance of the whole order of priesthood. The accusation which those
priests brought against him was that of sedition and conspiracy against
the Roman government, to which the Jews were then subject and tributary;
and it is not improbable that the Roman government might have some
secret apprehension of the effect of his doctrine, as well as the Jewish
priests; neither is it improbable that Jesus Christ had in contemplation
the delivery of the Jewish nation from the bondage of the Romans.
Between the two, however, this virtuous reformer and religionist lost
his life.... He was the son of God in like manner that every other
person is--for the Creator is the Father of All.... Jesus Christ founded
no new system. He called men to the practice of moral virtues, and the
belief of one God. The great trait in his character is philanthropy."
Many Christmas sermons were preached in 1793, but probably all of them
together do not contain so much recognition of the humanity of Jesus as
these paragraphs of Paine. The Christmas bells ring in the false, but
shall also ring in the true. While he is writing, on that Christmas
night, word comes that he has been denounced by Bourdon de l'Oise,
and expelled from the Convention. He now enters the Dark Valley.
"Conceiving, after this, that I had but a few days of liberty I sat
down, and brought the work to a close as speedily as possible."
In the "Age of Reason" there is a page of personal recollections. I have
a feeling that this little episode marks the hour when Paine was told of
his doom. From this overshadowed Christmas, likely to be his last,
the lonely heart--as loving a heart as ever beat--here wanders across
tempestuous years to his early home in Norfolk. There is a grateful
remembrance of the Quaker meeting, the parental care, the Grammar
School; of his pious aunt who read him a printed sermon, and the garden
steps where he pondered what he had just heard,--a Father demanding
his Son's death for the sake of making mankind happier and better. He
"perfectly recollects the spot" in the garden where, even then, but
seven or eight years of age, he felt sure a man would be executed for
doing such a thing, and that God was too good to act in that way. So
clearly come out the scenes of childhood under the shadow of death.
He probably had an intimation on December 27th that he would be
arrested that night. The place of his abode, though well known to
the authorities, was not in the Convention's Almanack. Officially,
therefore, his residence was still in the Passage des Petits Peres.
There the officers would seek him, and there he should be found. "For
that night only he sought a lodging there," reported the officers
afterwards. He may have feared, too, that his manuscript would be
destroyed if he were taken in his residence.
His hours are here traceable. On the evening of December 27th, in the
old mansion, Paine reaches the last page of the "Age of Reason." They
who have supposed him an atheist, may search as far as Job, who said
"Though He slay me I will trust in Him," before finding an author who,
caught in the cruel machinery of destructive nature, could write that
last page.
"The creation we behold is the real and ever existing word of God, in
which we cannot be deceived. It proclaim-eth his power, it demonstrates
his wisdom, it manifests his goodness and beneficence. The moral duty
of man consists in imitating the moral goodness and beneficence of God
manifested in the creation towards all his creatures. That seeing, as we
daily do, the goodness of God to all men, it is an example calling upon
all men to practise the same towards each other, and consequently
that everything of persecution and revenge between man and man, and
everything of cruelty to animals, is a violation of moral duty."
In what "Israel" is greater faith found? Having written these words,
the pen drops from our world-wanderer's hand. It is nine o'clock of
the night. He will now go and bend his neck under the decree of the
Convention--provided by "the goodness of God to all men." Through the
Faubourg, past Porte St. Martin, to the Rue Richelieu, to the Passage
des Petits Peres, he walks in the wintry night. In the house where
he wrote his appeal that the Convention would slay not the man in
destroying the monarch, he asks a lodging "for that night only."
As he lays his head on the pillow, it is no doubt with a grateful
feeling that the good God has prolonged his freedom long enough to
finish a defence of true religion from its degradation by superstition
or destruction by atheism,--these, as he declares, being the two
purposes of his work. It was providently if not providentially timed.
"I had not finished it more than six hours, in the state it has since
appeared, before a guard came, about three in the morning, with an
order, signed by the two Committees of Public Safety and Surety General,
for putting me in arrestation as a foreigner, and conveying me to the
prison of the Luxembourg."
The following documents are translated for this work from the originals
in the National Archives of France.
"National Convention.
"Committee of General Surety and Surveillance of the National
Convention.
"On the 7th Nivose [December 27th] of the ad year of the French
Republic, one and indivisible.
"To the Deputies:
"The Committee resolves, that the persons named Thomas Paine and
Anacharsis Clootz, formerly Deputies to the National Convention,
be arrested and imprisoned, as a measure of General Surety; that an
examination be made of their papers, and those found suspicious put
under seal and brought to the Committee of General Surety.
"Citizens Jean Baptiste Martin and Lamy, bearers of the present decree
are empowered to execute it,--for which they ask the help of the Civil
authorities and, if need be, of the army.
"The representatives of the nation, members of the Committee of General
Surety--Signed: M. Bayle, Voulland, Jagot, Amar, Vadier, Elie Lacoste,
Guffroy, Louis (du bas Rhin) La Vicomterie, Panis."
"This day, the 8th Nivose of the 2d year of the French Republic, one and
indivisible, to execute and fulfil the order given us, we have gone to
the residence of Citizen Thomas Paine, Passage des Petits Peres,
number seven, Philadelphia House. Having requested the Commander of the
[Police] post, William Tell Section, to have us escorted, according to
the order we showed him, he obeyed by assigning us four privates and
a corporal, to search the above-said lodging; where we requested the
porter to open the door, and asked him whether he knew all who lodged
there; and as he did not affirm it, we desired him to take us to the
principal agent, which he did; having come to the said agent, we asked
him if he knew by name all the persons to whom he rented lodgings; after
having repeated to him the name mentioned in our order, he replied to
us, that he had come to ask him a lodging for that night only; which
being ascertained, we asked him to conduct us to the bedroom of Citizen
Thomas Paine, where we arrived; then seeing we could not be understood
by him, an American, we begged the manager of the house, who knows his
language, to kindly interpret for him, giving him notice of the order of
which we were bearers; whereupon the said Citizen Thomas Paine submitted
to be taken to Rue Jacob, Great Britain Hotel, which he declared
through his interpreter to be the place where he had his papers; having
recognized that his lodging contained none of them, we accompanied the
said Thomas Paine and his interpreter to Great Britain Hotel, Rue Jacob,
Unity Section; the present minutes closed, after being read before the
undersigned.
"(Signed): Thomas Paine.
J. B. Martin.
Dorle, Commissary.
Gillet, Commissary.
F. Dellanay.
Achille Audibert, Witness.*
Lamy."
* It will be remembered that Audibert had carried to London
Paine's invitation to the Convention.
"And as it was about seven or eight o'clock in the morning of this day
8th Nivose, being worn out with fatigue, and forced to take some food,
we postponed the end of our proceeding till eleven o'clock of the same
day, when, desiring to finish it, we went with Citizen Thomas Paine to
Britain House, where we found Citizen Barlow, whom Citizen Thomas Paine
informed that we, the Commissaries, were come to look into the papers,
which he said were at his house, as announced in our preceding paragraph
through Citizen Dellanay, his interpreter; We, Commissary of the Section
of the Unity, undersigned, with the Citizens order-bearers, requested
Citizen Barlow to declare whether there were in his house, any papers
or correspondence belonging to Citizen Thomas Paine; on which, complying
with our request, he declared there did not exist any; but wishing to
leave no doubt on our way of conducting the matter, we did not think it
right to rely on what he said; resolving, on the contrary, to ascertain
by all legal ways that there did not exist any, we requested Citizen
Barlow to open for us all his cupboards; which he did, and after having
visited them, we, the abovesaid Commissary, always in the presence of
Citizen Thomas Paine, recognized that there existed no papers belonging
to him; we also perceived that it was a subterfuge on the part of
Citizen Thomas Paine who wished only to transfer himself to the house of
Citizen Barlow, his native friend (_son ami natal_) whom we invited to
ask of Citizen Thomas Paine his usual place of abode; and the latter
seemed to wish that his friend might accompany him and be present at the
examination of his papers. Which we, the said Commissary granted him,
as Citizen Barlow could be of help to us, together with Citizen Etienne
Thomas Dessous, interpreter for the English language, and Deputy
Secretary to the Committee of General Surety of the National Convention,
whom we called, in passing by the said Committee, to accompany us to
the true lodging of the said Paine, Faubourg du Nord, Nro. 63. At which
place we entered his rooms, and gathered in the Sitting-room all
the papers found in the other rooms of the said apartment. The said
Sitting-room receives light from three windows, looking, one on
the Garden and the two others on the Courtyard; and after the most
scrupulous examination of all the papers, that we had there gathered,
none of them has been found suspicious, neither in French nor in
English, according to what was affirmed to us by Citizen Dessous our
interpreter who signed with us, and Citizen Thomas Paine; and we, the
undersigned Commissary, resolved that no seal should be placed, after
the examination mentioned, and closed the said minutes, which we declare
to contain the truth. Drawn up at the residence, and closed at 4 p.m.
in the day and year abovenamed; and we have all signed after having read
the minutes.
"(Signed): Thomas Paine. Joel Barlow.
Dorle, Commissary. Gillet, Commissary. Dessous. J. B. Martin. Lamy.
"And after having signed we have requested, according to the order of
the Committee of General Surety of the National Convention, Citizen
Thomas Paine to follow us, to be led to jail; to which he complied
without any difficulty, and he has signed with us:
Thomas Paine. J. B. Martin.
Dorle, Commissary. Lamy. Gillett, Commissary."
"I have received from the Citizens Martin and Lamy, Deputy-Secretaries
to the Committee of General Surety of the National Convention, the
Citizens Thomas Paine and Ana-charsis Clootz, formerly Deputies; by
order of the said Committee.
"At the Luxembourg, this day 8th Nivose, 2nd year of the French
Republic, One and Indivisible.
"Signed: Benoit, Concierge."
{1794}
"Foreign Office--Received the 12th Ventose [March 2d]. Sent to the
Committees of General Surety and Public Safety the 8th Pluviose [January
27th] this 2d year of the French Republic, One and indivisible.
"Signed: Bassol, Secretary."
"Citizens Legislators!--The French nation has, by a universal decree,
invited to France one of our countrymen, most worthy of honor, namely,
Thomas Paine, one of the political founders of the independence and of
the Republic of America.
"Our experience of twenty years has taught America to know and esteem
his public virtues and the invaluable services he rendered her.
"Persuaded that his character of foreigner and ex-Deputy is the only
cause of his provisional imprisonment, we come in the name of our
country (and we feel sure she will be grateful to us for it), we come
to you, Legislators, to reclaim our friend, our countryman, that he may
sail with us for America, where he will be received with open arms.
"If it were necessary to say more in support of the Petition which,
as friends and allies of the French Republic, we submit to her
representatives, to obtain the liberation of one of the most earnest and
faithful apostles of liberty, we would beseech the National Convention,
for the sake of all that is dear to the glory and to the heart of
freemen, not to give a cause of joy and triumph to the allied tyrants of
Europe, and above all to the despotism of Great Britain, which did not
blush to outlaw this courageous and virtuous defender of Liberty.
"But their insolent joy will be of short duration; for we have the
intimate persuasion that you will not keep longer in the bonds of
painful captivity the man whose courageous and energetic pen did so much
to free the Americans, and whose intentions we have no doubt whatever
were to render the same services to the French Republic. Yes, we feel
convinced that his principles and views were pure, and in that regard
he is entitled to the indulgence due to human fallibility, and to the
respect due to rectitude of heart; and we hold all the more firmly
our opinion of his innocence, inasmuch as we are informed that after a
scrupulous examination of his papers, made by order of the Committee of
General Surety, instead of anything to his charge, enough has been
found rather to corroborate the purity of his principles in politics and
morals.
"As a countryman of ours, as a man above all so dear to the Americans,
who like yourselves are earnest friends of Liberty, we ask you, in the
name of that goddess cherished of the only two Republics of the World,
to give back Thomas Paine to his brethren and permit us to take him to
his country which is also ours.
"If you require it, Citizens Representatives, we shall make ourselves
warrant and security for his conduct in France during the short stay he
may make in this land.
"Signed: W. Jackson, of Philadelphia. J. Russell, of Boston. Peter
Whiteside, of Philadelphia. Henry Johnson, of Boston. Thomas Carter, of
Newbury Port. James Cooper of Philadelphia. John Willert Billopp, of New
York. Thomas Waters Griffith, of Baltimore. Th. Ramsden, of Boston.
Samuel P. Broome, of New York. A. Meadenworth, of Connecticut. Joel
Barlow, of Connecticut. Michael Alcorn, of Philadelphia. M. Onealy, of
Baltimore. John McPherson, of Alexandria [Va.]. William Haskins, of
Boston. J. Gregory, of Petersburg, Virginia. James Ingraham, of
Boston."'
The following answer to the petitioning Americans was given by Vadier,
then president of the Convention.
"Citizens: The brave Americans are our brothers in liberty; like us
they have broken the chains of despotism; like us they have sworn the
destruction of kings and vowed an eternal hatred to tyrants and their
instruments. From this identity of principles should result a union
of the two nations forever unalterable. If the tree of liberty already
flourishes in the two hemispheres, that of commerce should, by this
happy alliance, cover the poles with its fruitful branches. It is for
France, it is for the United States, to combat and lay low, in concert,
these proud islanders, these insolent dominators of the sea and the
commerce of nations. When the sceptre of despotism is falling from the
criminal hand of the tyrants of the earth, it is necessary also to break
the trident which emboldens the insolence of these corsairs of Albion,
these modern Carthaginians. It is time to repress the audacity and
mercantile avarice of these pirate tyrants of the sea, and of the
commerce of nations.
"You demand of us, citizens, the liberty of Thomas Paine; you wish to
restore to your hearths this defender of the rights of man. One can only
applaud this generous movement. Thomas Paine is a native of England;
this is undoubtedly enough to apply to him the measures of security
prescribed by the revolutionary laws. It may be added, citizens, that
if Thomas Paine has been the apostle of liberty, if he has powerfully
co-operated with the American Revolution, his genius has not understood
that which has regenerated France; he has regarded the system only
in accordance with the illusions with which the false friends of our
revolution have invested it. You must with us deplore an error little
reconcilable with the principles admired in the justly esteemed works of
this republican author.
* The preceding documents connected with the arrest are in
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